Navigating supplemental information for a digital work

ABSTRACT

In some implementations, a digital work may include a plurality of objects that may be selected to view supplemental information. A supplemental information user interface may include a listing of objects from the digital work. For instance, the listing may include a selected object appearing at an identified location in the digital work. The user interface may further present a visual representation displayed with each object that provides an indication of at least one location of at least one occurrence of the corresponding object in the digital work. In some examples, a user may navigate between a supplemental information view user interface, a page view user interface, a chapter view user interface, a book view user interface, a series view user interface, and/or a library view user interface to view occurrences of a particular object in the digital work or other digital works.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 61/538,715, filed Sep. 23, 2011, the entire disclosureof which is incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND

The continued proliferation of digital works has led to an increase inthe availability of such works, as well as an increase in theavailability of electronic devices used for consuming these works. Forinstance, users now consume digital works, such as electronic books(eBooks), digital videos, digital songs, digital images, and the like,on an assortment of electronic devices. As the number of digital worksand devices for consuming digital works continues to increase, users areever more interested in enhancing their experiences while consumingthese works.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The detailed description is set forth with reference to the accompanyingfigures. In the figures, the left-most digit(s) of a reference numberidentifies the figure in which the reference number first appears. Theuse of the same reference numbers in different figures indicates similaror identical items or features.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example device providing access to supplementalinformation according to some implementations.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of accessing supplemental informationaccording to some implementations.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example interface for providing supplementalinformation according to some implementations.

FIG. 4 illustrates an enlarged view of the example interface of FIG. 3for providing supplemental information, depicting a page view userinterface according to some implementations.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example interface for providing supplementalinformation, depicting a chapter view user interface according to someimplementations.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example interface for providing supplementalinformation, depicting a book view user interface according to someimplementations.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example interface for providing supplementalinformation, depicting a series view user interface according to someimplementations.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example interface for providing supplementalinformation, depicting a library view interface according to someimplementations.

FIG. 9 illustrates an example interface for providing supplementalinformation, depicting a supplemental content view interface accordingto some implementations.

FIG. 10 illustrates an example interface for providing supplementalinformation, depicting a supplemental information view user interfaceaccording to some implementations.

FIG. 11 illustrates various alternative examples of supplementalinformation visual representations according to some implementations.

FIG. 12 illustrates an example interface for providing supplementalinformation, depicting a page view user interface with a spoiler curtainaccording to some implementations.

FIG. 13 illustrates an example interface for providing supplementalinformation, depicting a book view user interface for a non-fictiondigital work according to some implementations.

FIG. 14 illustrates an example framework for providing supplementalinformation according to some implementations.

FIG. 15 illustrates an example structure of supplemental information fora digital work according to some implementations.

FIG. 16 illustrates an example architecture of a system for providingsupplemental information for a digital work according to someimplementations.

FIG. 17 illustrates select components of an example electronic deviceaccording to some implementations.

FIG. 18 illustrates select components of one or more example hostcomputing devices of a digital work provider according to someimplementations.

FIG. 19 is a flow diagram illustrating an example process executed by anelectronic device for providing supplemental information in connectionwith a digital work according to some implementations.

FIG. 20 is a flow diagram illustrating an example process executed by adigital work provider computing device for providing supplementalinformation in connection with a digital work according to someimplementations.

FIG. 21 is a flow diagram illustrating an example process for providingsupplemental information that includes a visual representationcorresponding to a selected object according to some implementations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

This disclosure includes techniques and arrangements for providingsupplemental information in association with a digital work, such as adigital work that includes textual content or has textual contentassociated therewith. As one example, a user may select an object, suchas a word, phrase or name displayed in a digital work. In response tothe selection, the user may be presented with supplemental informationregarding the selected object. In some implementations, the digital workmay be displayed on an electronic device, and the supplementalinformation in connection with the digital work may be displayed in auser interface provided on the electronic device. In some examples, theuser interface presents supplemental information that includes a visualrepresentation of one or more locations of instances of the selectedobject in the digital work. Further, in addition to presenting thevisual representation of locations of the selected object in the digitalwork, the user interface may present one or more visual representationsof locations of other objects derived from the digital work that mayalso be of interest to the user.

As one non-limiting example, suppose that the user is reading anelectronic book (eBook) and encounters the name of a character that theuser does not recognize or cannot recall. The user may select the nameof the character from the displayed text of the eBook. In response tothe selection, the device may present a user interface that displays avisual representation of other locations or occurrences within the eBookwhere the character's name (or variations thereof) also appears.Accordingly, the user may employ the user interface to refer to anotherlocation in the eBook to determine the identity or significance of theselected character. For example, the user interface may be furthernavigated to present excerpts from the book of one or more otherinstances at which the character's name appears along with surroundingtext.

In some implementations, the user may be able to select numerousdifferent types of objects from the text of a digital work for obtainingsupplemental information about a selected object. As severalnon-limiting examples, an object may refer to characters or people,places, things, interactions, organizations, relationships, popularhighlights, topics, citations, scenes, events, significant words orphrases, and timelines or time periods, to name a few. The user maynavigate through the user interface between a page view, a chapter view,and a book view for the digital work to view visual representations ofthe locations of objects of significance in the digital work on a perpage, per chapter or per book basis. Additionally, in the case that thedigital work is part of a series of digital works, such as a series ofbooks, the user interface may provide navigation to a series view thatshows locations of a selected object with respect to the entire seriesof digital works.

Furthermore, the user interface may also provide the ability to navigateto a library view that may present locations of a selected object in anentire library of digital works, such as a library of all of the digitalworks maintained on the particular electronic device or, in otherimplementations, an entire library of digital works possessed by adigital work provider. Thus, the library view may display a listing oftitles of a plurality of digital works that include the selected objectand enable the user to view occurrences of the selected object in theplurality of digital works, such as in a plurality of other books,movies, television shows, songs, and so forth. For example, the libraryview may provide a visual representation for each listed digital workthat indicates a frequency and location of occurrences of the selectedobject in the other digital works in the library.

In some implementations, the user interface may present prestoredcontent as part of the supplemental information provided in the userinterface. For example, the user may navigate the user interface to viewsupplemental information about the selected object. The supplementalinformation may include prestored content, such as an excerpt of anarticle, essay, commentary, discussion or other composition drawn froman authoritative source that provides supplemental information about theselected object. In some instances, the excerpt is prestored on theelectronic device with other supplemental information and, thus, may beprovided to the user in the user interface whether the device isconnected to a network or not. Additionally, the prestored contentpresented in the user interface may include a link, such as a hyperlinkor other reference identifier, to enable the user to navigate to anetwork location to view a full version of the article or discussion ofthe selected object from which the prestored content is drawn. In someexamples, multiple reference identifiers may be provided to enable theuser to automatically access several different online sources ofinformation regarding the selected object.

In some implementations, a digital work provider may generatesupplemental information for each digital work provided by the digitalwork provider. For example, the digital work provider may analyze adigital work and from the digital work may generate supplementalinformation, such as the identification of objects in the digital workand the locations of occurrences of the objects in the digital work. Insome instances, the digital work provider may generate an index for eachdigital work that can be used to generate the visual representations andother supplemental information on the electronic device. The digitalwork provider may also obtain additional or external content related toobjects identified in a digital work from one or more authoritativesources, such as one or more online sources of information. The digitalwork provider may include this content as prestored content providedwith the supplemental information for a corresponding digital work.Alternatively, one or more links or reference identifiers (e.g.,hyperlinks, network location identifiers, uniform resource locators(URLs), etc.) for the content may be provided with the supplementalinformation in place of the prestored content. Thus, in some examples,rather than including the prestored content in the supplementalinformation, one or more reference identifiers may be displayed that canbe selected by a user to obtain the content dynamically from a networklocation.

In some instances, the digital work provider may provide thesupplemental information to the electronic device when providing acorresponding digital work. For example, when the electronic deviceaccesses or receives a digital work from the digital work provider, thesupplemental information may be accessed or received as part of apackage that includes the digital work. Thus, in the case that thedigital work is downloaded from the digital work provider, thesupplemental information may be downloaded by the electronic devicecontemporaneously with the digital work, such as before, during or afterthe download of the digital work. For example, the supplementalinformation for a particular digital work may be stored on theelectronic device as metadata associated with a particular digital work.Thus, in some instances the supplemental information is stored on theelectronic device separately from the corresponding digital work.

Alternatively, the supplemental information may not be provided with thedigital work, but rather a reference identifier that identifies thelocation of the supplemental information may be provided with thedigital work. Accordingly, based on the reference identifier includedwith a particular digital work, the electronic device may access andobtain the supplemental information corresponding to the particulardigital work under a number of different circumstances. For example, theelectronic device may receive the supplemental information for aparticular digital work when the particular digital work is received bythe electronic device. In other examples, the electronic device mayaccess or receive the supplemental information for a digital work whenthe digital work is first opened or displayed on the electronic device.As another example, the electronic device may access or receive thesupplemental information in response to a user input to view thesupplemental information, such as through selection of a particularobject referenced in the digital work. In some instances, only arequested portion of the supplemental information is received by theelectronic device, such as on an as-requested basis. In other instances,the electronic device receives a package of supplemental informationprepared for the particular digital work so that the supplementalinformation may be accessed locally on the electronic device.

Furthermore, the digital work provider may provide updates to thesupplemental information. For example, if the prestored content includedwith the supplemental information is updated or changed, the digitalwork provider may provide these updates to the electronic device. Insome instances, a policy is applied to determine whether the content haschanged a sufficient amount to warrant providing an update to theprestored content. Additionally, one or more links or referenceidentifiers (e.g., hyperlinks, network location identifiers, uniformresource locators (URLs) etc.) to online sources of information andcontent about the objects may be updated in the supplementalinformation, or new links may be added, through the provision of updatedsupplemental information. Similarly, when other aspects of thesupplemental information change, the supplemental information on theelectronic device may be updated with this changed information. Forexample, with respect to the library view, new digital works may beproduced that include one or more objects also in an existing digitalwork. Accordingly, the digital work provider may update the supplementalinformation relating to objects in existing digital works already storedon the electronic device by adding the occurrences and locations of theobjects in the new digital works. Various other types of updates mayalso be made to the supplemental information.

Some example implementations are described in the environment of anelectronic device displaying several example configurations of userinterfaces for discussion purposes. However, the implementations hereinare not limited to the particular examples provided, and may be extendedto other user interface configurations, other types of devices, andother types of technologies, as will be apparent to those of skill inthe art in light of the disclosure herein.

Example Interfaces

FIG. 1 illustrates an example electronic device 100 that provides accessto supplemental information for digital works according to someimplementations herein. The electronic device 100 may be implemented asany of a number of electronic devices, such as an eBook reader, a mediaplayer, a tablet computing device, a smart phone, a portable gamingdevice, a portable digital assistant, a laptop or netbook computer, andso forth. Furthermore, the electronic device 100 may not necessarily bea mobile or portable device, and thus, in some implementations mayinclude a display of a desktop or other computing device, a gamingsystem, a television, other home electronics devices, and so forth.

The electronic device 100 includes a display 102 for displaying adigital work 104 or other image or interface to a user. In someexamples, the display 102 may be a touchscreen type of displayconfigured with a sensor to sense a touch input received from an inputeffecter 106, such as a finger of a user, a stylus, or other pointer.Thus, the touchscreen may receive one or more touch inputs,interactions, selections of displayed objects, and so forth.

In other implementations, the display may be non-touch sensitive.Accordingly, in addition to, or as an alternative to, a touch sensitivedisplay, the electronic device 100 may include various external controlsand input devices. For example, some implementations (not shown inFIG. 1) of the electronic device 100 may include a virtual or physicalkeyboard, a mouse, a pointing stick, a touchpad, a trackball, ajoystick, a remote control, buttons and/or various other controls forperforming various desired inputs and interactions with the electronicdevice 100 and digital works 104 displayed on the display 102, and whichmay include selection of one or more objects in the digital works.Additionally, in other implementations, one or more voice commands maybe used to control or interact with the interfaces herein, such as forselection of objects and performing other functions. Thus,implementations herein are not limited to any type of input devices,techniques, or controls.

In some implementations, the digital work 104 may be an electronic book(eBook) having one or more pages of text. For example, the display 102may depict the text of the eBook and also any illustrations, tables,maps, or graphic elements that might be contained in the eBook. Theterms “book” and/or “eBook,” as used herein, include electronic ordigital representations of printed works, as well as digital contentthat may include text, multimedia, hypertext, and/or hypermedia.Examples of printed and/or digital works include, but are not limitedto, books, magazines, newspapers, periodicals, journals, referencematerials, textbooks, anthologies, instruction manuals, proceedings ofmeetings, forms, directories, web pages, plays, screen plays, closedcaptioning transcripts of movies and television shows, song lyrics, andso forth. Accordingly, the terms “book” and/or “eBook” may include anyreadable or viewable textual content that is in electronic or digitalform. Additionally, some implementations herein are not limited todigital text, but may also include other digital works, such as digitalaudio (e.g., music, audible books, etc.), digital video (e.g., movies,television, short clips, etc.), images (e.g., art, photographs, etc.),and multi-media content, as described additionally below.

In the illustrated example of FIG. 1, suppose that the digital work 104that the user is reading is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum,and that page 71 of the digital work is currently displayed on thedisplay 102 of the electronic device 100, as indicated by the displayedpage number 108. Furthermore, suppose that the user desires to obtainmore information regarding the Tin Woodman character of the digital work104. As illustrated in FIG. 1, the user may select an instance of thename of the Tin Woodman currently displayed on the electronic device 100as an object 110. For example, in the case that the display 102 includesa touch screen, the user may use the input effecter 106 (e.g., a finger)to select the name of the Tin Woodman. In other examples, the user mayuse other input controls, as described above, to select the object 110,depending on the particular type and configuration of the electronicdevice 100. For example, the user may employ a mouse, a pointing stick,a touchpad, a trackball, a joystick, a remote control, buttons and/orvarious other controls for selecting objects displayed in the digitalwork 104 on the display 102. Further, the objects that may be selectedare not limited to words or phrases, but may include symbols, icons,images, figures, selectable areas of an image or video, and so forth.For example, in the case that the digital work is an image or video,examples of objects may include an image of a person or thing includedin the image or video. Similarly, textual digital works may includesymbols, maps, tables, images, and the like, that may also be objectsthat are selectable for viewing supplemental information according tosome implementations herein.

FIG. 2 further illustrates an example electronic device 100 thatprovides access to supplemental information according to someimplementations herein. Thus, in some implementations, following theselection of the object 110, the electronic device 100 may display abutton or other virtual control 202 that may be selected by the user toview supplemental information available in connection with the selectedobject 110. Accordingly, in these implementations, the user may selectthe virtual control 202 to display a supplemental information userinterface, as discussed below with respect to FIG. 3. Furthermore, inother implementations, the virtual control 202 is not displayed and/orother inputs may be used to cause display of the user interface. Forexample, the supplemental information user interface may be displayed inresponse to various inputs or combinations of inputs, such as doubletapping on the object 110, maintaining contact of the input effecter 106with the object 110 for a predetermined period of time, or other typesor combinations of user inputs as will be apparent to those of skill inthe art in view of the disclosure herein.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example of the electronic device 100 providingaccess to supplemental information through display of a page view userinterface 302 according to some implementations herein. In this example,following the selection of the virtual control 202 by the user, or inresponse to other user input received from the user in association withthe object 110, the electronic device may display the user interface 302as a pop-up or overlay displayed overtop of the digital work 104. Inother implementations, the user interface 302 may be displayed as aseparate window or screen encompassing all or a portion of the display102. In yet other examples, the interface 302 may be displayed in asplit screen arrangement in which the user interface 302 is displayed ina first portion of the display 102 and the digital work continues to bedisplayed in a second portion of the display 102, such as in a reducedsize. Numerous other variations will also be apparent to those of skillin the art in view of the disclosure herein.

FIG. 4 illustrates an enlarged view of the page view user interface 302of FIG. 3 according to some implementations herein. In this example, theuser interface 302 presents a plurality of objects identified on theparticular page of the digital work 104 at which the user selected theobject 110, as described above. For example, page 71 of the digital work104 identifies eight objects in total, including seven characters andone place. Accordingly, as mentioned above, the objects, such ascharacters, places, things, phrases of interest, events, popularhighlights, and so forth, may be identified in a digital work in advanceby the digital work provider. The digital work provider may then providesupplemental information, such as the location and occurrence of eachobject identified in the digital work, to the electronic device alongwith the digital work.

In the illustrated example, the page view user interface 302 displaysthe objects identified in page 71 of the digital work 104. Accordingly,in this example, the user interface 302 displays a listing 402 for theTin Woodman, a listing 404 for the Scarecrow, a listing 406 for Dorothy,a listing 408 for the Cowardly Lion, a listing 410 for Toto, a listing412 for the Great Oz, a listing 414 for the Wicked Witch, and a listing416 for Kansas. Associated with each item listing 402-416 is a visualrepresentation that provides an indication of a location and frequencyof each object in the digital work 104. Thus, the interface 302 providesa visual representation 418, for the Tin Woodman, a visualrepresentation 420 for the Scarecrow, a visual representation 422 forDorothy, a visual representation 424 for the Cowardly Lion, a visualrepresentation 426 for Toto, a visual representation 428 for the GreatOz, a visual representation 430 for the Wicked Witch, and a visualrepresentation 432 for Kansas.

In some examples, the objects displayed in the page view user interface302 may be displayed in an order in which the objects appear on theparticular page from which the page view user interface 302 is drawn. Asanother example, the listed objects in the page view user interface 302(and the other user interfaces described herein) may be displayed in anorder of frequency of occurrence of each object in the digital work. Forinstance, the object occurring most frequently in the digital work maybe listed first, and the other objects may be listed in a descendingorder of frequency. Further, when there are more objects listed thanwill fit on the view in the user interface, the listing mayautomatically scroll to display the selected object within the listing.As another example, the selected object may be listed first and theremaining objects may be displayed in the order of appearance on thepage or an order of frequency. As some additional examples, the listedobjects may be displayed in alphabetical order or according to acategory or type of object. Numerous other variations will be apparentto those of skill in the art in light of the disclosure herein, with theforegoing merely being several non-limiting examples. Further, the pageview user interface 302 and the other user interfaces described hereinmay include a control or button (not shown) for switching betweenvarious ordering arrangements for the objects. For example, the controlmay enable switching between ordering based on frequency, to orderingbased on order of occurrence in the page or digital work, order based ontype, or alphabetical ordering. As another example, the control mayenable switching between displaying the most the frequently occurringobjects listed first to displaying the least frequently occurringobjects listed first, and so forth.

The visual representations 418-432 may represent both the location andfrequency of occurrence of each corresponding object in the digital work104. For example, with respect to the visual representation 418 for theTin Woodman, the visual representation 418 includes an area 434extending between a first side 436 that is representative of a beginningof the digital work 104 and a second side 438 that is representative ofan end of the digital work 104. In this example, the area 434 has arectangular outline; however, other shapes and types of representationsmay also be used as discussed below. For example, in someimplementations, the area 434 may not have an outline or shape. The area434 extends from the first side 436 to the second side 438 and may berepresentative of the expanse (e.g., a total number of pages, a totalruntime, a total number of locations, etc.) of the digital work that thevisual representation 418 symbolizes.

At least one vertical line, bar or other type of marking 440 may belocated in the area 434. The marking 440 may correspond to at least onereferenced of the object in the digital work. Further, in someimplementations, the location of the marking 440 may generallycorrespond to a location of the occurrence of the object in the digitalwork itself. In the illustrated example, with respect to the visualrepresentation 418 for the object Tin Woodman, a plurality of markings440 are located within the area 434 corresponding to a plurality ofoccurrences of the object Tin Woodman, or variations thereof, in thetext of the digital work 104. For example, a leftmost first marking440-L, closest to the first side 436, represents the first occurrence ofthe object Tin Woodman in the digital work 104. A rightmost secondmarking 440-R, closest to the second side 438, represents the locationof the final occurrence of the object Tin Woodman in the digital work104.

The other markings 440 located between the first marking 440-L and thesecond marking 440-R may represent other occurrences of the object TinWoodman in the digital work 104 at various locations corresponding tothe locations of occurrences of the object Tin Woodman in the digitalwork. For example, for each page in the digital work on which the objectTin Woodman's name, or a variation thereof, appears, a marking 440 maybe applied to the visual representation 418. Accordingly, in someimplementations, if the resolution of the display 102 permits, thevisual representation 418 may be generally to scale with a number ofpages in the digital work 104, with each marking 440 representing atleast one page in the digital work 104 and being in a locationcorresponding to or proportional to the location of the page in thedigital work out of a total number of the pages in the digital work.Thus, in some examples, occurrences of the object Tin Woodman onadjacent pages may appear as a single larger continuous marking 440.Further, in some examples, a marking 440 between the first side 436 andthe second side 438 may be at a location that is proportional to alocation of a page corresponding to the occurrence between the firstpage and the last page of the digital work.

Additionally, in some examples, such as in the case of a digital workthat is a movie, song or television show, the digital work may have atotal runtime, and the location of the marking in the visualrepresentation may be proportional to an elapsed runtime of theoccurrence out of a total runtime of the digital work. Further, in someexamples, the digital work may have length analogous to a total textcontent, and the marking in the visual representation may correspond toa location of the occurrence of the object in the text content inrelation to the total text content. In other examples, as describedbelow, depending on the resolution of the display 102, other types ofmarkings may be used that may provide additional details, such as thenumber of occurrences of the object on each page of the digital work.Accordingly, numerous variations will be apparent to those of skill inthe art in light of the disclosure herein.

Furthermore, in the example of FIG. 4, the page view user interface 302is rendered based on page numbers of the digital work 104. In otherimplementations, however, rather than using page numbers, the page viewuser interface 302 may be rendered based on location numbers determinedfor the digital work 104. For instance, in some devices or platforms, adigital work is not displayed with page numbers or may not have pagenumbers associated therewith. As one example, because various differentdisplay conditions may exist during the rendering of a digital work onvarious different devices having various different display sizes andresolutions, page numbering may not apply to a digital work on somedevices or platforms. In such a case, the digital work provider may useinvariant referencing to assign location numbers to parts of the digitalwork. The location numbers may remain constant for the parts of thedigital work regardless of a screen size, font type, font size or othervariations in the display conditions of the digital work. Additionalinformation on assigning location numbers to parts of a digital work isprovided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,865,817 to Ryan et al., the entiredisclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.

Accordingly, in these implementations, rather than using page numbers,the digital work 104 of FIG. 1 may be displayed as one or more locationnumbers, such as a range of location numbers out of a total number oflocations in the digital work 104. Consequently, the interface 302 maybe generated based on the range of locations rendered on the display 102when the selection of the object 110 is made. For example, suppose thatthe text of the digital work 104 displayed in FIG. 1 corresponds tolocations 244-255 out of a total 347 locations. Therefore, the listings402-416 displayed in the user interface 302 would correspond to theoccurrence of the objects contained in locations 244-255 currentlyrendered on the display 102.

Additionally, in the examples of digital works in which assignedlocations are used instead of page numbers, the area 434 of the visualrepresentation 418 may represent an expanse of the total locations inthe digital work, from the first location on the first side 436 to thelast location on the second side 438. Thus, the location of a marking440 in the visual representation may correspond to a location of theoccurrence in the digital work and may be at a location between thefirst side 436 and the second side 438 that is proportional to alocation of the occurrence in the digital work. For purposes of thisdescription, regardless of whether page number or location identifiersare used, for ease of explanation a “page” will refer to the visibletext that is displayed on the device and is not dependent upon aphysical page size or font.

Referring again to FIG. 4, a vertical line 442 may be displayed in theuser interface 302, traversing or passing through the visualrepresentations 418-432, to indicate the location of the currentlyrendered page 71 (or equivalent location number range) with respect tothe overall digital work 104. Further, the current page numbercorresponding to the location of the vertical line 442 and the displayedlistings 402-416 is indicated at 444. For example, the user may navigatethe user interface 302 to other pages in the digital work, such as byselecting a left arrow 446 or a right arrow 448 to move backwards orforwards in the digital work 104, respectively. As one non-limitingexample, the user may tap the left arrow 446 one time to move the userinterface 302 from the representation of objects on page 71 to arepresentation of objects on page 70 of the digital work 104.

As the user navigates from one page to another, listings of variousobject may disappear or appear in the user interface 302. For example,the object Kansas may not be mentioned on page 70 of the digital work104. Consequently, when the user navigates the user interface 302 from apage view for page 71 to a page view for page 70, the listing 416 andvisual representation 432 for the object Kansas may disappear while alisting and visual representation for one or more other objectsreferenced on page 70 may be added to the user interface 302. In someinstances, rather than just disappearing or being suddenly replaced, afade effect may be applied such that the objects may fade in and out toenable the user to track which object are not present on particularpages. Additionally, in some examples, rather than tapping the leftarrow 446 or the right arrow 448 to navigate to a page view for adifferent page, the user may select or otherwise drag the vertical line442 left or right to a different location with respect to the visualrepresentations. The user can then view the user interfacerepresentation with respect to a different page, and the current page isidentified by the page number indicator 444.

In the illustrated example, the total number of different objectsreferenced on page 71 is indicated in an “all items” button 450, whichin this example indicates that there are a total of eight objects, whichcorrespond to the eight listings 402-416. Further the number ofcharacter objects on page 71 is indicated in a characters button 452(i.e., seven in this example), while the number of place objectscontained on page 71 is indicated in a places button 454 (i.e., one inthis example). In this example, the all items button 450 is currentlyselected and, thus, all eight of the objects referenced on page 71 aredisplayed in the user interface 302. On the other hand, if the userwanted to view just the character objects referenced on page 71, theuser could select the characters button 452 to display a listing of justthe character objects in the user interface 302 (i.e., listings402-414). Similarly, if the user wanted to view just the place objectsreferenced on page 71, the user may select the places button 454 andonly the listing 416 corresponding to the place objects (in this exampleKansas) would be shown in the user interface 302. Further, numerousother types of object buttons (e.g., phrases, things, organizations,etc.) may be displayed when those types of object are available on theparticular page for which the supplemental information is beingpresented. However, when those types of object are not available on thepage corresponding to the current page view interface 302, then theobject buttons for those object types may also not be displayed.

The techniques described above may be employed to navigate the page viewinterface 302 to the presentation of a page view interface 302corresponding to a different page. When the user navigates the userinterface 302 to a different page, the corresponding different page fromthe digital work may be rendered on the display 102 underneath the userinterface 302. Accordingly, the page of the digital work displayed onthe display 102 may change in correlation with the movement of thevertical line 442 to various different pages in the digital work 104.For example, suppose that the user wishes to move to the firstoccurrence at which the object Tin Woodman appears in the digital work104 to reread that portion of the digital work (e.g., page 37). The usermay move the vertical line 442 to the beginning of the leftmost marking440-L. Based on this movement of the vertical line 442, the device maythen change the page rendered on the display 102 to correspond to thepage at which the vertical line 442 is currently located, i.e., page 37.The user may then close the user interface 302, such as by tapping on aclose-window control 456 (e.g., an X in the upper right corner of theinterface 302). This action will close the user interface 302 andpresent the user with the text of page 37 at which the object TinWoodman is first mentioned in the digital work 104. Accordingly, theuser may employ the user interface 302 to navigate through the digitalwork 104 to locations of various objects of interest.

As mentioned above, the page view user interface 302 displays a pageview which displays the objects referenced on the currently renderedpage. Accordingly, the user interface 302 may indicate that the currentview is the page view. Several non-limiting examples of indicatorsinclude highlighting a word “page” 460, outlining the word “page” 460,bolding the word “page” 460, enlarging the word “page” 460, placing amarker or pointer under or above the word “page” 460, or other suitableindicator may be provided to indicate that the current view is the pageview. The user interface 302 may also indicate that a chapter view and abook view are available for selection based on presentation of the word“chapter” 462 and the word “book” 464, as indicated in a header 466 ofthe user interface 302. For example, if the user desires to view thechapter view or the book view, the user may select the correspondingword “chapter” 462 or “book” 464 to switch to a chapter view userinterface or book view user interface, respectively. Further, somedigital works may not have “chapters.” Consequently, for these digitalworks, the word “chapter” 462 may not be present in the page view userinterface 302, but the option to navigate to the book view may remain.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example chapter view user interface 500 that maybe presented when the user navigates to the chapter view according tosome implementations. For example, the header 466 may indicate that theview currently presented is the chapter view. As several non-limitingexamples, the word “chapter” 462 may be highlighted, outlined, bolded,enlarged, etc., a marker or pointer may be placed beneath or above theword “chapter” 462, or other suitable indicator may be displayed toindicate that the chapter view is being presented. Furthermore, thechapter corresponding to the currently displayed page (e.g., page 71) ofthe digital work may be identified at 502. Accordingly, in this example,since page 71 is in chapter 15 of the digital work 104, “chapter 15” isshown at 502.

In chapter view user interface 500, the vertical line 442 that indicatedthe page location in the user interface 302 is replaced in the interface500 with a vertical bar 504 that corresponds to the location of thecurrent chapter in the visual representations 418-430 and that traversesthe visual representations 418-430. For example, a width of the verticalbar 504 may be proportional to a size of the chapter (e.g., a number ofpages in the chapter) relative to the overall size of the digital work(e.g., relative to a total number of pages in the digital work).Additionally, in other examples, both the vertical line 442, to indicatea location the current page, and the vertical bar 504, to indicate alocation of the current chapter, may be presented in the chapter viewuser interface 500. For example, the vertical line 442 may be displayedas a different color than the vertical bar 504 to indicate a location ofthe current page within the current chapter.

In the illustrated example, a listing 506 for the object Emerald Cityand a corresponding visual representation 508 for the object EmeraldCity are visible in the chapter view user interface 500. The listing 416for the object Kansas and the corresponding visual representation 432for the object Kansas have not been removed from a list 510 of objectscontained in chapter 15. Instead, the listing 416 for the object Kansashas merely been moved down the list 510 and is therefore no longervisible in the immediately displayed interface 500. Accordingly, thelisting 416 for the object Kansas may be viewed by scrolling down thelist 510 of objects using a scroll-down control 512. For example, thescroll-down control 512 may be included in the chapter view interface500 (or the other interfaces herein) to indicate that additional objectsmay be viewed by scrolling the list 510.

In the illustrated example of the chapter view for chapter 15, the allitems button 450 indicates that there are 45 total objects listed in thelist 510, with eleven of those objects being characters, as indicated bythe character button 452; three of the objects being places as indicatedby the places button 454; seven of the objects being things, asindicated by a things button 514; five of the objects beinginteractions, as indicated by an interactions button 516; one of theobjects being an organization, as indicated by an organizations button518; four of the objects being relationships, as indicated by arelationships button 520; one of the objects being a popular highlight,as indicated by a popular highlights button 522; two of the objectsbeing scenes, as indicated by a scenes button 524; one object being atable of contents, as indicated by a table of contents button 526; oneof the objects being an event, as indicated by an events button 528; andnine of the objects being phrases, as indicated by a phrases button 530.For example, if the user just wanted to see the phrase objects includedin chapter 15, the user may select the phrases button 530. As a resultof selecting the phrases button 530, the interface 500 may update thelist 510 to be populated with just listings and corresponding visualrepresentations for the nine phrase objects that are included in chapter15 of the digital work 104.

As mentioned above, the digital work provider may decide which portionsof a digital work to select as an object within the digital work 104.Accordingly, the types of objects made available through the interfacesherein are not limited to the specific examples provided but mayencompass any aspect of a digital work that may be of interest to aperson that accesses or consumes the digital work. For example, thedigital work provider may use various automated techniques for decidingwhich portion of a digital work to make selectable and available throughthe interfaces herein. Thus, a set of object buttons 532 presented belowthe header 466 may indicate to the user the types or categories ofobjects in the currently selected chapter.

In the illustrated example, the main characters in the digital work 104are made selectable. For example, a user may wish to refer to variouslocations at which the main characters occur. The digital work providermay use automated techniques to identify the main characters in adigital work, such as by parsing the digital work to identify propernames, or the like, that occur in the digital work. In some instances,the digital work provider may use statistical analysis techniques toidentify which characters play a significant role in a digital work. Thedigital work provider may also refer to various other sources whenidentifying the main characters in a digital work, such as by referringto various data stores and/or online sources of information (e.g.,Internet movie database (IMDb®), Wikipedia®, Shelfari®, onlinedictionaries, encyclopedias, discussion forums, and various othersources of information). Thus, cross-referencing the proper namesidentified in the digital work with other sources of information mayimprove the accuracy of automatically identifying characters in adigital work. Additionally, with respect to the other object types, thedigital work provider may use similar techniques to identify significantplaces mentioned in a digital work; locations in the digital work ofinteractions between the characters; organizations mentioned in thedigital work; relationships between particular characters in the digitalwork; popular highlights in the digital work (e.g., portions orhighlights of the digital work that are discussed frequently in onlinesources, online forums, social networking sites, and so forth);identifiable scenes from the digital work; identifiable events in thedigital work; and identifiable phrases (e.g., statistically improbablephrases that occur in the digital work), as several non-limitingexamples of objects that may be identified by the digital work provider.In addition, the foregoing examples are non-exhaustive and numerousother types of objects may be identified in digital works, such asthemes, time periods, timelines, genres, and parental ratings, to name afew. Further, the types or categories of objects may vary from work towork. For example, works of non-fiction generally would not include“characters,” but instead “people” or some other category might beprovided. Accordingly, implementations herein are not limited toparticular types or categories of objects.

The user may navigate the chapter view interface 500 from the currentchapter to another chapter using the left arrow button 446 or the rightarrow button 448. Accordingly, the user may tap on the left arrow button446 once to navigate the interface 500 from the chapter view of chapter15 to a chapter view of chapter 14. The vertical bar 504 may move to theleft to correspond to the location of the selected chapter and theobject buttons 532 and the list 510 of objects would change tocorrespond to the objects referenced in chapter 14. Additionally, insome implementations, rather than using the left and right arrow buttons446, 448 respectively, the user may select and slide the vertical bar504 to the desired chapter.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example user book view interface 600 that may bepresented when the user selects the book view from either the userinterface 302 or the user interface 500 according to someimplementations. For example, from either the interface 302 or theinterface 500, the user may select the word “book” 464 in the header 466to cause the electronic device 100 to render the book view interface600. In the book view interface 600, the header 466 may indicate thatthe view presented is a book view. As several non-limiting examples, theword “book” 464 may be bolded, outlined, enlarged, or otherwisehighlighted, etc., a marker or pointer may be placed beneath or abovethe word “book” 464, or other suitable indicator may be displayed toindicate that the current view is the book view. In addition, the title602 of the digital work may be displayed underneath the header 466rather than the chapter number or page number.

The book view may provide a listing 604 of all objects referenced in thedigital work 104 when the all items button 450 is selected. In theillustrated example, the all items button 450 indicates that there are197 total objects identified in the digital work 104. Accordingly, theuser may use the scroll down control 512 to scroll through the objectsin the listing 604. Alternatively, the user may select a particular oneof the object buttons in the set of object buttons 532 to view aparticular category of objects. Further, one or more additional objectbuttons may also be included below the header 466 that were not includedin the chapter view or page view, depending on the objects referenced inthe digital work 104. In this example, a citations button 606 indicatesthat one citation listing is included in the digital work, while a topicbutton 608 indicates that one topic is included in the digital work 104.As mentioned above, the objects referenced in a digital work identifiedas of interested are not limited to the examples provided herein.

In this example, a listing 610 for the phrase silver shoes and acorresponding visual representation 612 is included as one of the 24phrases included in the listing 604 of objects. Accordingly, the visualrepresentation 612 for the object silver shoes shows the occurrence ofthe phrase silver shoes in the digital work 104. The Emerald Citylisting 506 is still included in the listing 604 of all objectsreferenced in the digital work 104. Accordingly, while the Emerald Citylisting 506 is not visible in the current view of the book viewinterface 600, the Emerald City listing 506 may be accessed by using thescroll down control 512.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example user interface 700 that may be presentedwhen the user elects to access a series view from the user interface 600according to some implementations. For instance, in the case that thedigital work 104 is part of a series of books, from the user interface600 in FIG. 6, the user may tap or otherwise select the right directionarrow 448 to navigate to a series view, as illustrated in FIG. 7.Accordingly, the header 466 may now include a word “series” 702. Asseveral non-limiting examples, the word “series” 702 may be highlighted,outlined, bolded, enlarged, etc., a marker or pointer may be placedbeneath or above the word “series” 702, or other suitable indicator maybe displayed to indicate that the series view is being presented.Alternatively, in some implementations, when the book is part of aseries, the word “series” 702 may be included in the header 466 from theoutset such as included in the interfaces 302, 500 and 600 to enable auser to directly access the series view interface 700.

The series view interface 700 may include a vertical bar 704 thatindicates a current digital work in the series from among a plurality ofdigital works in the series represented by the interface 700.Accordingly, similar to the chapter view vertical bar 504 describedabove, the user may move the vertical bar 704 such as by using the rightdirection arrow 448 or the left direction arrow 446, by sliding, or thelike. Accordingly, as the vertical bar 704 moves from one book to thenext book in the series, a title 706 displayed underneath the header 466may change to show the name of the book currently displayed in theseries view user interface 700.

In addition, the visual representations for each listing in the seriesview user interface 700 now represent the occurrences of thecorresponding listed objects in the series of books, rather than in asingle book. For example, a visual representation 708 for the object TinWoodman now shows the occurrences of the object Tin Woodman throughoutthe series of the Oz books, indicating that the object Tin Woodman maynot be present in some of the books while playing a substantial role inothers of the books in the series. Similarly, a series visualrepresentation 710 shows occurrences of the object scarecrow in theseries; a series visual representation 712 shows occurrences of theobject Dorothy in the series; a series visual representation 714 showsoccurrences of the object cowardly lion in the series; a series visualrepresentation 716 shows occurrences of the object Toto in the series; aseries representation 718 shows occurrences of the object Great Oz inthe series; a series visual representation 720 shows occurrences of theobject “silver shoes” in the series; and a series visual representation722 shows occurrences of the object Wicked Witch in the series.Accordingly, it is possible to determine the role played by each ofthese characters or other objects throughout the entire series of booksbased on the view provided by the series view interface 700.Consequently, through the series view, a user may determine which booksto read if the user is interested in reading further about a particularcharacter or the like. Additionally, in some implementations, when theuser has navigated to a different book in the series using the seriesview interface 700, the user may select the book view from the seriesinterface to view the book view interface for the different book.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example library view interface 800 that may bepresented when the user elects to access a library view, such as fromthe user interface 700 according to some implementations. For instance,as one example, in the series view interface 700, the user may navigateto the last book in the series using the right direction arrow 448. Asubsequent navigation to the right may generate the library viewinterface 800. Accordingly, in this example, the header 466 may nowinclude a word “library” 802. As several non-limiting examples, the word“library” 802 may be highlighted, outlined, bolded, enlarged, etc., amarker or pointer may be placed beneath or above the word “library” 802,or other suitable indicators may be displayed to indicate that thelibrary view is being presented. Alternatively, in some implementations,when the library view will be available, the word “library” 802 may beincluded in the header 466 from the outset, such as included in theinterfaces 302, 500, 600 and 700 to enable a user to directly access thelibrary view interface 800 from any of the interfaces 302, 500, 600 or700.

In the example of FIG. 8, the library view interface 800 is presentedfor the object 804, the Tin Woodman in this example. Accordingly, theobject Tin Woodman 804 is listed below the header 466. Furthermore,unlike the previous user interfaces 302, 500, 600 and 700 describedabove, the library view interface 800 is directed to the occurrence ofthe object Tin Woodman in a plurality of digital works contained in thelibrary, and provides a listing of the titles of digital works in thelibrary that include one or more occurrences of the object Tin Woodman.

In some implementations, the library of digital works used to generatethe library view interface 800 may be limited to the digital workscontained on the electronic device 100 (e.g., in a library of digitalworks stored on the electronic device 100). In other implementations,the library used to generate the library view interface 800 may extendto some or all of the digital works maintained by the digital workprovider (e.g., in a library of digital works of the digital workprovider). In still other implementations, the library view may beselectable, providing a user with a view for digital works contained onthe device or a view for all digital works maintained by the digitalwork provider.

In the illustrated example, the library view interface 800 includes alisting 806 of titles of digital works and corresponding visualrepresentations of occurrences of the object Tin Woodman 804 in thedigital works listed. Thus, the listing 806 of digital works includes alisting 808 for The Tin Woodman of Oz published in 1918; a listing 810for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz published in 1900; a listing 812 for ThePatchwork Girl of Oz published in 1913; a listing 814 for The MarvelousLand of Oz published in 1904; a listing 816 for Dorothy and the Wizardin Oz published in 1908; a listing 818 for Ozma of Oz published in 1907;a listing 820 for Wicked; The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch Of theWest, published in 1995; and a listing 822 for The Wizard of Oz, themovie released in 1939.

Furthermore, the visual representation associated with each listeddigital work may represent the occurrences of the object Tin Woodman inthat digital work. For example, the visual representation 418 for theobject Tin Woodman corresponding to the listing 810 The Wonderful Wizardof Oz is the same as that shown above with respect to interfaces 302,500 and 600. Furthermore, a visual representation 824 shows occurrencesof the object Tin Woodman in The Tin Woodman of Oz; a visualrepresentation 828 shows occurrences of the object Tin Woodman in thePatchwork Girl of Oz; a visual representation 830 shows occurrences ofthe object Tin Woodman in The Marvelous Land of Oz; a visualrepresentation 832 shows occurrences of the object Tin Woodman inDorothy and the Wizard in Oz; a visual representation 834 showsoccurrences of the object Tin Woodman in Ozma of Oz; a visualrepresentation 836 shows occurrences of the object Tin Woodman in a morerecently published digital work entitled Wicked; The Life and Times ofthe Wicked Witch Of the West, and a visual representation 838 showsoccurrences of the object Tin Woodman in the movie The Wizard of Ozreleased in 1939. For example, the occurrences of the object Tin Woodmanin the movie version of The Wizard of Oz may be determined based on acorresponding screenplay, analysis of the close captioning content forthe movie, image recognition, facial recognition and/or voice-to-textrecognition performed directly on the movie, and so forth.

Furthermore, the object buttons listed below the header 466 may also bedifferent in the library view interface 800 from those described abovein the interfaces 302, 500, 600 and 700. For example, an “all digitalworks” button 840 shows in this example that the library contains 132digital works that have at least one occurrence of the object TinWoodman. For example, a digital work that includes only one occurrenceof the object Tin Woodman in the digital work, such as in a conversationin an otherwise unrelated book, may be included in the listing 806 ofdigital works. Accordingly, in some implementations, the digital worksin the listing 806 as may be ranked according to a relevance to theobject 804. For example, the digital works may be listed in an orderbased at least in part on a frequency of occurrence of the object 804 inthe digital work. Other factors may also be taken into considerationsuch as the author of each of the digital works, the time period of thedigital works, the type of digital work, and other information about thedigital works.

In addition to the “all digital works” button 840, the library viewinterface may include a books button 842, which shows that there are 84books in the library that include at least one occurrence of the objectTin Woodman; a movies button 844, which shows that there are 9 movies inthe library that include at least one occurrence of the object TinWoodman; a television show button 846, which shows that there are 34television shows in the library that include at least one occurrence ofthe object Tin Woodman; and a songs button 848, which shows that thereare 5 songs within the library that include at least one occurrence ofthe object Tin Woodman. For example, with respect to the songs, thedigital work provider may analyze the lyrics of the songs to detect oneor more occurrences of the object Tin Woodman. As with the otherinterfaces discussed above, if the user wishes to view only the moviesthat include an occurrence of the object Tin Woodman, the user mayselect the movie button 844. Similarly, the user may view just the booksby selecting the book button 842, just the television shows by selectingthe television show button 846, and just the songs by selecting the songbutton 848.

FIG. 9 illustrates a supplemental information view user interface 900that the user may navigate to, such as from the user interface 302discussed above with respect to FIG. 4, or from the other userinterfaces 500, 600, 700 or 800. For example, from the interface 302,the user may select the object Tin Woodman, such as by tapping, doubleclicking, etc., and be presented with the supplemental information viewuser interface 900. The supplemental information view user interface 900includes the name of the object 902, and may include prestored content904 obtained in advance from an authoritative source and provided by thedigital work provider as part of the supplemental information providedfor the corresponding digital work 104. Several non-limiting examples ofsources from which the prestored content may be obtained include onlinesources, such as Wikipedia®, Shelfari® and IMDb®, as well as otherencyclopedias, reference books, websites, and the like, depending on thesubject matter of the digital work being analyzed and supplemented.

Accordingly, the digital work provider may obtain a limited amount ofinformation about the object 902, such as an excerpt from an onlinesource, to provide as prestored content 904 with the supplementalinformation for a particular digital work. The digital work provider mayalso provide a link 906 to the full article at an online source toenable the user to access additional information on the object 902 ifthe user so desires and currently has network access. Accordingly, theuser may view the full article on the object 902 by selecting the link906 or the like. Additionally, the digital work provider may include alink 908 to license information on the prestored content.

In other implementations, as an alternative to displaying the prestoredcontent 904, the supplemental information view interface 900 may insteaddisplay one or more links to online sources of information about theselected object. In some examples, no prestored content 904 is includedwith the supplemental information and instead the supplementalinformation may include one or more links or reference identifiers forsources of information or content about the selected object. Forexample, each displayed link may be selected by a user to access anetwork accessible resource that provides information about the selectedobject, such as descriptive text, an image, an audio clip, a video clip,and so forth. As another example, when the supplemental information viewuser interface 900 is accessed, a module on the electronic device 100(e.g., a supplemental information display module, as described below)may access information from a network accessible resource to obtain andautomatically display the information about the selected object in thesupplemental information view user interface 900. Thus, rather thanrelying on prestored content, the supplemental information view userinterface 900 may dynamically display content about the selected objectretrieved from an online source. For example, the content may beretrieved from any of the online sources discussed above, from thedigital work provider, or various other network accessible resources,either automatically or in response to a user selection of a displayedreference identifier (i.e., a link, a URL), or selection of a button orcontrol that causes access to the network accessible resources. Theseimplementations may reduce the frequency of updates to the prestoredcontent since the latest content on information about the selectedobject will be obtained when the supplemental information view userinterface 900 is accessed. In some cases, however, updates to thereference identifiers that link to the network accessible resources maybe still be made, such as when a URL changes, or if additional sourcesof information about the object become available.

Furthermore, the supplemental information view user interface 900 mayalso provide the visual representation 418 corresponding to the object902, and which may include a slider 910 in a position that correspondsto text from one or more excerpts from the book listed below the visualrepresentation 418. For example, the supplemental information view userinterface 900 may provide the chapter 912 and page number 914 for eachexcerpt from the text of the digital work 104. Accordingly, when theslider 910 is positioned at the beginning of the visual representation418, such as at the leftmost marking, a first excerpt 916 may includethe first occurrence of the object Tin Woodman in the digital work, andmay highlight the occurrence in the excerpt as indicated at 918.Similarly, the second excerpt 920 may include the second occurrence ofthe object Tin Woodman in the digital work and may highlight theoccurrence in the excerpt, as indicated at 922. Accordingly, the usermay scroll down using the scroll down control 512 to view additionalexcerpts corresponding to the current location of the slider 910.Further, the user may select and slide the slider left or right alongthe visual representation 418 to view other excerpts from the bookhaving occurrences of the object Tin Woodman therein. Furthermore, theuser may select the left arrow 446 to return to the previous userinterface such as the page view user interface 302 described above.

FIG. 10 illustrates another example of supplemental information viewuser interface 1000 in which there is no prestored content for theobject 902 (or the user has closed the prestored content for the object902). In this example, the slider 910 can be seen to have changed sizefrom the previous example for instance, the slider 910 may change sizebased upon the locations of the excerpts currently shown in thesupplemental information view user interface 1000 in relation to thevisual representation 418. In this example, a first excerpt 1002, asecond excerpt 1004, a third excerpt 1006, and a fourth excerpt 1008 arepresented in the supplemental information view user interface 1000,spanning pages 39 through 43. Thus, the slider 910 may elongate orcontract in the direction of sliding left or right depending on thelocations of the excerpts displayed in the supplemental information viewuser interface 1000 and corresponding to the current slider location onthe visual representation 418. Furthermore, a scroll-up arrow 1010 maybe included in addition to the scroll-down control 512, to enable theuser to scroll between various excerpts of the text of the digital work104. The slider 910 may move along the visual representation 418 inaccordance with the scrolling.

FIG. 11 illustrates several examples of alternative configurations ofvisual representations according to some implementations herein. In theillustrated example, the visual representation 418 for the object TinWoodman is depicted for comparison purposes to enable comparison withthe example alternative configurations. A first example alternativeconfiguration is a circular indicator graph 1102; a second examplealternative configuration is a spark line graph 1104; a third examplealternative configuration is a histogram 1106; and a fourth examplealternative configuration is a heat map 1108.

The circular indicator graph 1102 includes a plurality of circularindicator markings that indicate locations and frequency of occurrencesof the object Tin Woodman in the digital work 104. In this example, aplurality of small circles or dots 1110 may provide a baselineindication that there are no occurrences of the selected object at thatlocation in the digital work. Accordingly, the dots 1110 may extendacross the area 434 from the first side 436 to the second side 438. Insome examples, each dot 1110 may correspond to one page in the digitalwork if the resolution of the display 102 enables such a representation.Further, a first marking or first circular indicator 1112 may be of afirst diameter corresponding to a single occurrence of the object TinWoodman on a single page of the digital work 104. A second marking or asecond circular indicator 1114 may be, e.g., four times the diameter ofthe first circular indicator 1112 to indicate that there are fouroccurrences of the object Tin Woodman on the page of the digital work104 corresponding to the location of the second indicator 1114.Consequently, a circular indicator may be provided for each page, andmay be of a diameter corresponding to a number of instances oroccurrences of the object on that page, with adjacent circularindicators larger than the baseline dots 1110 overlapping. Additionally,in other implementations, there is no overlap between the circularindicators. Further, in other examples, the dots and circular indicatorsmay correspond to location number assigned to the parts of the digitalwork or ranges of location numbers, as discussed above.

The sparkline graph 1104 may also serve to provide an indication offrequency of occurrence an object in separate portions of the book. Insome implementations, the sparkline graph 1104 may extend across thearea 434 from the first side 436 to the second side 438. The sparklinegraph 1104 may include a baseline 1116 that indicates that there are nooccurrences of the object in a corresponding area of the digital work104. The sparkline graph 1104 may further include markings that appearas peaks that indicate a location of at least one occurrence of theobject in the digital work. The altitude of the peaks of the sparklinegraph 1104 may indicate a maximum number of occurrences of the object ina particular portion of the digital work 104. For example, a first peak1118 may be a first altitude where there is only a single occurrence ofthe object at that location in the digital work, while a second peak1120 may be of a substantially higher altitude when there are a numberof instances of the object in the digital work at that portion of thedigital work. For example, if the maximum number of occurrences in thearea of the second peak 1120 is four occurrences, the second peak 1120may be four times as high as the first peak 1118.

The histogram 1106 may include a plurality of markings that are bars orother suitable shapes, the height of which indicates a number ofoccurrences of the object at a particular location in the digital work104. For example, if the resolution of the display 102 is sufficient,the histogram 1106 may include a bar corresponding to each page of thedigital work 104. Thus, the histogram 1106 may include a baseline 1122for pages at which there are no occurrences of the object. Further, afirst bar 1124 may have a first height corresponding to a singleoccurrence of the selected object on a particular page of the digitalwork 104, while a second bar 1126 may be, e.g., four times the height ofthe first bar 1124 to indicate that there are four occurrences of theobject at that page of the digital work 104, and so forth. In someexamples, each bar may have a width corresponding to a single page ofthe digital work such that the area 434 has a width or expansecorresponding to a total number of pages in the digital work.Additionally, in other implementations, each bar of the histogram 1106may correspond to multiple pages or multiple locations in a digitalwork.

The heat map 1108 may include markings that appear in grayscale orcolor, and may indicate through differences in shade or color how manyoccurrences of the object are at a particular location in the digitalwork 104. For example, the heat map 1108 may include a first shade orcolor at a location where there are no occurrences of the object.Further, in some examples, the heat map 1108 may get progressivelydarker or progressively lighter as there are more occurrences of theobject at particular locations in the digital work 104. For example, inthe case that the heat map 1108 is grayscale, a marking at a firstlocation 1130 at which there is only a single occurrence of the object,may have a shade that is only slightly different from the baseline 1128,while a marking at a second location 1132, at which there are multipleoccurrences of the object, may have a shade that is substantiallydifferent from the baseline 1128, i.e., substantially darker orsubstantially lighter. Alternatively, in other examples the markings ofthe heat map 1108 may vary in color progressively from one color toanother color based on the number of occurrences of the object atparticular locations in the digital work corresponding to the markings.

Furthermore, the visual representations described herein are onlyseveral non-limiting illustrative examples of representations that maybe employed to provide supplemental information to users. Numerousvariations in the types of representations provided, various shapes andgraph types used to generate the representations, whether therepresentations are in color or monotone, and so forth will be apparentto those of skill in the art in view of the disclosure herein.

FIG. 12 illustrates an example user interface 1200 that may correspondto the user interface 302 in the illustrated example, or to otherinterfaces herein in other examples. The user interface 1200 includes aspoiler screen or spoiler curtain 1202, which may be included overtop ofa portion of the visual representations displayed in the user interfacesherein, such as user interfaces 302, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000 andso forth. Thus, the spoiler curtain 1202 is an opaque screen thatconceals at least a portion of the visual representations. For example,in the case of fiction works, the visual representations may provide anindication of interactions between characters in the digital work, thefate of characters, and the like. For example, by viewing the visualrepresentations 418-432 it may be possible to determine whethercharacters are still in the digital work at the end of the digital work,which characters interact with each other at the end of the digitalwork, which things are present at the end of the digital work, whichlocations are of importance at the end of the digital work, and soforth, which may spoil the reader's enjoyment of the digital work byprematurely indicating the outcome of the story or the like.Accordingly, the spoiler curtain 1202 may be displayed overtop of thevisual representations 418-432 starting at the current location that theuser has reached in the digital work and extending to the end of thedigital work. Thus, the spoiler curtain 1202 hides the occurrences ofcharacters, things, places, etc., and/or interactions betweencharacters, things, places, and so forth in the digital work beyond thepoint at which the reader has already reached. In some examples, thepoint that the user has reached in the digital work may be indicated bythe vertical line 442. Consequently, the spoiler curtain 1202 may extendfrom the vertical line 442 to the rightmost end of the visualrepresentations 418-432.

Furthermore, should the user desire to view the full extent of thevisual representations 418-432, the user may select a virtual controlsuch as a window-close control 1204 to close the spoiler curtain 1202.Closing the spoiler curtain 1202 will result in revealing the hiddenportions of the visual representations 418-432, as shown e.g., in thepage view of the user interface 302, as discussed above with respect toFIG. 4. Accordingly, the spoiler curtain 1202 may be employed any timethat the supplemental information interfaces herein may provide anindication to a user of future events or interactions in the digitalwork. Further, while the spoiler curtain 1202 may be applied frequentlyin the case of fiction digital works, it is unlikely that the spoilercurtain 1202 would be needed in the case of nonfiction digital works,such as a reference digital work, a factual digital work, and so forth.Accordingly, implementations herein may be configured to automaticallyapply the spoiler curtain 1202 when displaying supplemental informationfor works identified as fiction and not apply the spoiler curtain 1202when displaying supplemental information for digital works identified asnon-fiction.

FIG. 13 illustrates an example book view interface 1300 that may bepresented when the user navigates to a book view while reading anon-fiction digital work according to some implementations. In thisexample, suppose that the user is reading The Autobiography of BenjaminFranklin and desires to find out more information about a personmentioned in the digital work, such as James Ralph. The user may selectthe name of James Ralph as an object, and navigate to the book viewinterface 1300 in a manner similar to that described above. The bookview interface 1300 may present the user with a listing 1302 of objectsand corresponding visual representations of occurrences of those objectsin the digital work. In this example, the listing 1302 may include alisting 1304 for James Ralph; a listing 1306 for John Collins; a listing1308 for Benjamin Franklin; a listing 1310 for William Keith; a listing1312 for Charles Osborne; a listing 1314 for Hugh Meridith; a listing1316 for S. Keimer; and a listing 1318 for Andrew Bradford. Each personlisted in the listing 1302 may be listed with a corresponding visualrepresentation showing locations of occurrences of the person's name inthe digital work. For example, James Ralph may be listed with acorresponding visual representation 1320; John Collins may be listedwith a corresponding visual representation 1322; Benjamin Franklin maybe listed with a corresponding visual representation 1324; William Keithmay be listed with a corresponding visual representation 1326; CharlesOsborne may be listed with a corresponding visual representation 1328;Hugh Meridith may be listed with a corresponding visual representation1330; S. Keimer may be listed with a corresponding visual representation1332; and Andrew Bradford may be listed with a corresponding visualrepresentation 1334. Thus, each corresponding visual representation1320-1334 may visually indicate the locations of occurrences of objectsin the digital work. Additionally, as noted from the object buttonsprovided above the listing 1302, the user may scroll down through thelisting 1302 using a scroll-down control 1336 to view additional peopleor other objects identified in the digital work.

Further, as the digital work is a work of non-fiction, the supplementalinformation may differ from that associated with a work of fiction. Forexample, with respect to the object buttons, for a work of non-fiction,the characters button 452 may be replaced with a people button 1338 thatindicates the number of people of interest occurring in the digitalwork. Similarly, the scenes button 524 may be replaced with a timelineor time period button 1340 that indicates various different time periodsor timelines covered by the book, such as the time period prior to theAmerican Revolution; the time period corresponding to the AmericanRevolution; and the time period after the American Revolution. Forexample, a nonfiction book, such as a history book, may include aplurality of distinct or identifiable time periods, each of which may bea different time period object for which supplemental information may beprovided. Furthermore, because the digital work is not part of a series,selection of the navigate right arrow 448 may result in presentation ofthe library view user interface for a selected object, rather than aseries view, as described above.

Example Framework

FIG. 14 illustrates an example framework 1400 for displayingsupplemental information in connection with a digital work according tosome implementations. In the example of FIG. 14, the electronic device100 includes a digital work display module 1402 and a supplementalinformation display module 1404. In some implementations, the digitalwork display module 1402 and the supplemental information display module1404 may be separate modules. In other implementations, the digital workdisplay module 1402 and the supplemental information display module 1404may both be part of the same application or computer program fordisplaying content on the electronic device 100. In yet otherimplementations, the digital work display module 1402 and thesupplemental information display module 1404 may represent differentfunctionalities of the same module.

As one non-limiting example, the digital work display module 1402 maydisplay a current digital work 1406 on the display 102. In someexamples, as mentioned above, the display 102 may be part of theelectronic device 100, and/or unitary with the electronic device 100. Inother implementations, the display 102 may be separate from theelectronic device 100 and connected to the electronic device 100. Ineither case, the digital work display module 1402 may render the currentdigital work 1406 on the display 102 for viewing by a user 1408.

As an example, while the digital work display module 1402 is displayingthe current digital work 1406, the electronic device 100 may receive auser selection 1410 of an object displayed in the current digital work1406, as discussed above with reference to FIG. 1. In response, in someimplementations, the digital work display module 1402 may display the“view information on selection” virtual control 202 discussed above withreference to FIG. 2. Upon receiving user selection of the virtualcontrol 202, the supplemental information display module 1404 may beexecuted to provide supplemental information 1412 in connection with theselected object of the current digital work 1406, such as describedabove with reference to the examples of FIGS. 3-13. For example, thesupplemental information display module 1404 may access the supplementalinformation 1412 available for the current digital work 1406, and mayprovide at least a portion 1414 of supplemental informationcorresponding to the user selection to be rendered on the display 102,such as in a window, overlay, pop up, or other user interface or imagedisplayed on the display 102.

Additionally, in some implementations, the supplemental informationdisplay module 1404 may access online information 1416 when providingthe portion 1414 of supplemental information. For example, if the user1408 requests additional information with respect to prestored content,such as by clicking on a provided link, the supplemental informationdisplay module 1404 may retrieve the online information from a networklocation, such as a uniform resource locator (URL), or other networklocation or repository. Examples of sources of such online information1416 include, but are not limited to Wikipedia®, Shelfari®, and IMDb®,as well as numerous other online sources. Additionally, in someimplementations, the supplemental information display module 1404 maydisplay links to online sources of information in place of or inaddition to the prestored content. Further, in some instances, thesupplemental information display module 1404 may dynamically obtaininformation about a selected object from one or more online sources ofinformation or other network accessible resources in response to theuser selection of the object.

In some examples, the electronic device 100 may include a digital workslibrary 1418, which may include one or more digital works, such as adigital work A 1420, a digital work B 1422, . . . , a digital work N1424, and so forth. The electronic device 100 may also include asupplemental information library 1426, which may include supplementalinformation corresponding to the digital works in the digital worklibrary 1418. In some implementations, a separate instance ofsupplemental information may be provided for each digital work1420-1424. Accordingly, supplemental information A 1428 may correspondto the digital work A 1420, supplemental information B 1430 maycorrespond to the digital work B 1422, . . . , supplemental informationN 1432 may correspond to the digital work N 1424, and so on. Forexample, the supplemental information A 1428 may have been received bythe electronic device 100 in connection with the accessing ordownloading of the digital work A 1420, such as from a digital workprovider 1434. Thus, the digital work provider 1434 may provide digitalworks 1436 and corresponding supplemental information 1438 for eachdigital work 1436 to a plurality of electronic devices 100 of aplurality of users 1408.

Additionally, in some implementations, the digital work provider 1434may provide the digital work and corresponding supplemental informationto an intermediary, such as a wireless network provider (not shown) orthe like, that, in turn, provides the digital work and correspondingsupplemental information to particular electronic devices 100. Forpurposes of this disclosure, “providing” by the digital work providermay include any intermediaries that perform delivery of the digitalworks and/or supplemental information.

In addition, the digital work provider 1434 may provide updatedsupplemental information 1440 to the electronic device 100 on a one-timeor periodic basis. For example, the supplemental information for one ormore digital works stored on the electronic device 100 may includeprestored content that provides information on one or more objects inthe digital work. Such prestored content may be updated at the originalsource, and thus, the digital work provider may provide updatedsupplemental information 1440 to the electronic device 100 to reflectthe change or update at the original source. Furthermore, other portionsof the supplemental information may also change over time. For example,as new digital works are produced, objects in previous digital works maybe discussed, used or referenced in the new digital works. Thus, in someexamples, the supplemental information for existing digital works may beupdated to include references to, or instances of, objects in newerdigital works, such as for presenting the library view described above.Various other types of updates to the supplemental information may beprovided by the digital work provider, with the foregoing being justseveral non-limiting examples. In addition, in some implementations, thesupplemental information display module 1404 on the electronic device100 may independently seek out and obtain updates to the supplementalinformation, such as from the digital work provider and/or other onlinesources.

To control the frequency of updates to the supplemental information, thedigital work provider may apply one or more policies to determinewhether changes to the prestored content, the reference identifiers, orother supplemental information are significant enough to warrant thedistribution of updated supplemental content. For example, with respectto the prestored content, the digital work provider may determinewhether the content has been changed by a predetermined thresholdamount. The digital work provider may also consider other factorsassociated with the prestored content and the source of the prestoredcontent, such as whether the source of the prestored content indicatesthat an error in the content has been corrected. Further, with respectto other types of updates to the supplemental information, variousthresholds or policies may be similarly applied to determine whether toprovide an update to the supplemental information for a particulardigital work.

FIG. 15 illustrates an example data structure 1500 of an instance ofsupplemental information 1502 according to some implementations. In theexample of FIG. 15, the supplemental information 1502 may include anidentification of a digital work 1504, which may identify a digital workto which the instance of supplemental information 1502 corresponds. Thesupplemental information 1502 may also include prestored content 1506,an index 1508, and alternate names 1510. Referring back to the examplesdescribed above with reference to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, theidentification of the digital work 1504 may include the title 1512,and/or other identifier for the digital work to which the instance ofsupplemental information 1502 relates.

The prestored content 1506 may include various types of prestoredcontent related to the objects identified in the digital work. Forexample, the prestored content may include a name 1514 of an object thatthe prestored content pertains to, and one or more instances ofprestored content 1516, as well as links to network locations foraccessing additional content. For example, links may be provided withthe prestored content, such as for accessing a full article from whichthe prestored content was drawn or for accessing other articles ordiscussions of the object. Examples of prestored content may includeexcerpts from articles obtained from various authoritative onlinesources, as well as video clips, audio clips, digital images, and soforth. Examples of suitable sources of prestored content includeWikipedia®, Shelfari® and IMDb®, as well as other authoritative sources,such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, and the like. In some instances,the prestored content may include an audio clip that demonstrates properpronunciation of an object, such as a character's name or other phrasesor words in a digital work. As another example, when the digital work isan eBook, and there is a movie that corresponds to the eBook, one ormore video clips or images from the movie may be provided as theprestored content. As one example, some of the video clips maycorrespond to particular scenes identified as objects in thesupplemental information. As another example, some of the video clipsmay depict particular characters and these video clips may be includedin the prestored content in association with names 1514 of thecorresponding particular characters. Accordingly, a large variety ofprestored content may be included with the supplemental information1502, with the foregoing being just several non-limiting examples.

The index 1508 may include an identification of the objects in thecorresponding digital work and occurrences or locations of the objects.In the illustrated example, the index 1508 includes a plurality oflistings 1518 for a plurality of objects from the digital work. Eachlisting 1518 may include an object name 1520, an object type 1522, andone or more locations 1524 of the object in the digital work. Inaddition, in some implementations, the locations 1524 may also includelocations of the named object in other digital works, such as otherdigital works in the library of digital works on the electronic device,or other digital works in the library of the digital work provider. Asone example of a listing 1518, a name 1520 of a object is “Dorothy,” atype 1522 of the object is “character,” and the digital work may includea plurality of locations 1524 of the object, each instance of which isidentified according to a location in the digital work. In someexamples, the locations 1524 may each include a name of the digitalwork, a start location of the instance, and an end location of theinstance, although other variations will be apparent to those of skillin the art in light of the disclosure herein.

The alternate names 1510 may include one or more listings 1526 ofalternative names of characters, people, places, things, and so forth.For example, characters are often referred to by more than one name in abook or movie. Thus, to identify instances of a character in a book ormovie, the alternate names of the character can also be identified.Accordingly, each alternate name listing 1526 may include a name 1528,and a set 1530 of one or more alternate names for the name 1528. Thealternate names 1510 may enable index listings 1518 to be tied to oneanother to enable identification of occurrences in a digital work of acharacter that is known by multiple names. For example, during indexing,the locations of occurrences of alternate names of an object in adigital work may be added to the set of locations 1524 included in theindex listing 1518 for an object. In other examples, when an object isselected, the alternate names 1510 may be referred to when producing thevisual representation for the object and other supplemental information,and the index locations may be combined to produce the visualrepresentation. The multiple alternate names may be associated with oneanother and an object using various automated techniques, such as byreferring to various online sources of information regarding the digitalwork (e.g., Wikipedia®, Shelfari® and IMDb®) for the particularcharacter, person or thing, and so forth. As another example, thedigital work provider may maintain one or more files, one or moredatabases, or the like, that include a list, collection or compilationof known alternate names, such as known or common nicknames, characternames, and so forth. Such a list, collection or compilation of alternatenames may further include common variations of words or phrases, such asplural and singular versions of words or phrases, common synonyms, andso forth. The one or more files or databases of alternate names may bemaintained locally by the digital work provider or may be stored at alocation on a network.

Additionally, in some implementations, crowd sourcing may be used toassist in correcting errors in alternate names, locations of objects ina digital work, and other automated decisions. For example, users may beprovided the opportunity to correct or augment the supplementalinformation. In some instances, the author of the digital work may alsobe provided the opportunity to provide information regarding alternatenames and other information, such as selection of significant phrases,locations of occurrences of particular objects, identification ofscenes, and the like, depending on the nature of the digital work.

Furthermore, in some instances, machine learning, classification, and/orstatistical modeling may be used to correlate personal pronouns withparticular characters, people, or other objects in a digital work. Forexample, pronouns that can be attributed to an object may be included asalternate names for the object. As another example, dialog and otheractions or interactions may be attributed to particular characterobjects or people objects, and so forth, based on a location of a nameor pronoun in relation to the dialog, action, etc. Thus, in the exampleof The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin discussed above with referenceto FIG. 13, the names Benjamin, Franklin, Ben, or Ben Franklin, etc.,may be included as alternate names. Additionally, because the digitalwork is an autobiography, the use of the personal pronoun “I” in manyinstances in the text may also be identified as an alternate name forBenjamin Franklin. In this particular example, the use of the personalpronoun “I” in the text may be attributed to Benjamin Franklin except insituations in which “I” is used in dialogue attributable to anotherperson other than Benjamin Franklin. Various automated techniques may beused to associate particular pronouns with particular objects in thetext. For instance, statistical modeling, machine learning and/or otherclassification techniques may be applied to identify pronounsattributable to particular people, characters, or other objects.Numerous other variations will be apparent to those of skill in the artin light of the disclosure herein.

Example System Architecture

FIG. 16 illustrates an example architecture of a system 1600 including adigital work provider site 1602 for providing one or more digital works1604 and corresponding supplemental information 1606 to one or moreelectronic devices 100 according to some implementations. As onenon-limiting example, the digital work provider site 1602 may be amerchant website, an e-commerce site, or the like, that offers digitalworks to the public. In some implementations, the digital work providersite 1602 may offer digital works 1604, such as books, magazines,newspapers, songs, movies, and so forth, to the public through awebsite, other type of electronic commerce site, an online location, orthe like. In some examples, the digital work provider site 1602 mayalternatively, or additionally, provide digital works through an onlineor mobile application executing on the electronic device 100. Forexample, an application on the electronic device 100 may connect to orobtain content from the digital work provider site 1602 to enable thepurchase or management of digital works, and the like. Thus, the digitalwork provider site 1602 may enable an electronic device 100 to accessdigital works 1604 through an online or mobile application executing ona mobile device, such as an eBook reader, smart phone, tablet computingdevice, or the like. Accordingly, the digital work provider site 1602 isnot limited to a website accessed by a browser, but may encompass othertechnologies for obtaining digital works, such as through in-applicationshopping, and the like.

The digital work provider site 1602 is able to communicate with one ormore electronic devices 100 and one or more users 1408 through one ormore networks 1608. For example, the network(s) 1608 may include a localarea network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), such as the Internet, orany combination thereof, and may include both wired and wirelesscommunication technologies using any suitable protocols andcommunication techniques. The digital work provider site 1602 and theelectronic device 100 may communicate and interact with one anotherusing any combination of suitable communication and networkingprotocols, such as Internet protocol (IP), transmission control protocol(TCP), hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), and so forth.

In some implementations, the digital work provider site 1602 may behosted on one or more host computing devices 1610. As one non-limitingexample, the host computing device(s) 1610 may be one or more webservers located at a data center, server farm, or other single physicallocation. In other examples, the digital work provider site 1602 orportions thereof may be located in diverse locations that are physicallyremote from one another. Further, in some implementations, the digitalwork provider site 1602 may be a group of websites, data stores,services, and the like, hosted on a plurality of different hostcomputing devices 1610 in a plurality of diverse locations, or hosted byone or more host computing devices 1610 at a single location.

Some non-limiting examples of electronic devices 100 may include digitalmedia devices and eBook readers 100-1, desktop computing devices 100-2,smart phones and mobile devices 100-3, laptop and netbook computingdevices 100-4, tablet computing devices 100-5, televisions, gamingsystems and home electronic devices 100-6, and any other device capableof accessing and rendering online content. In the illustrated example,the electronic device 100 may include the digital work display module1402, the supplemental information display module 1404, the digital worklibrary 1418, and the supplemental information library 1426, asdiscussed above with reference to FIG. 14.

The electronic device 100 may further include a provider interactionmodule 1612, which in some instances may be an application, such as aweb browser, mobile application, or other module or computer programconfigured to receive web content, webviews, online content, or thelike, for accessing and interacting with the digital work provider site1602. For example, the provider interaction module 1612 may enable theuser 1408 to shop for digital works at the digital work provider site1602 and access or receive digital works 1604 from the digital workprovider site 1602, such as by downloading through the network(s) 1608.Further, in some implementations, the provider interaction module 1612may enable the user 1408 to organize or manage the digital works on theelectronic device 100, while in other implementations, a separatemanagement module (not shown) may provide this functionality.

The digital work provider site 1602 may include a digital work storemodule 1614 that may provide or may access a digital work catalog 1616.For example, the digital work store module 1614 may present the digitalwork catalog 1616 to an electronic device 100 that accesses the digitalwork provider site 1602 to shop for a digital work 1604. The digitalwork catalog 1616 may include searchable and/or browsable listings anddescriptions of digital works 1604 available from the digital workprovider site 1602. The digital work store module 1614 may communicatewith the provider interaction module 1612 on the electronic device 100to enable the user 1408 to locate and acquire a digital work from thedigital work provider site 1602.

The digital work provider site 1602 may further include a deliverymodule 1618 that may deliver a digital work to the electronic device 100and/or the user 1408. For example, in some instances, the deliverymodule 1618 may facilitate the download of a digital work to theelectronic device 100 over the network(s) 1608. In other instances, thedelivery module 1618 may provide for delivery of a hard copy of thedigital work to the user, such as by delivery of a recording medium thatmaintains a copy of the digital work, depending on the nature of thedigital work and the electronic device 100.

Furthermore, in some implementations, the delivery module 1618 may referto the user information 1628 to determine one or more digital works 1604to download to the electronic device 100. For example, a user 1408 mayhave made purchased or otherwise accessed one or more digital works 1604from the digital work provider site 1602 in the past. The user 1408 mayacquire a new electronic device 100 and desire to have the previouslypurchased digital works 1604 accessible on the new electronic device100. Consequently, the delivery module 1618 may deliver the previouslypurchased digital works 1604 to the new electronic device 100 and,contemporaneously, may also deliver the supplemental information 1606corresponding to each of the digital works 1604 delivered to the newelectronic device 100, such as before, during or after delivery of thepreviously purchased digital works 1604. For example, the userinformation 1628 may include account information, a purchase history, auser library, or other records of digital works of the user 1408, suchas with respect to a first electronic device 100. Subsequently, when theuser 1408 acquires a second electronic device 100, the delivery module1618 may refer to the user information 1628 to determine, at least inpart, digital works and related supplemental information to download tothe second electronic device 100.

The digital work provider site 1602 may also include various other sitecomponents 1620, as is known, depending on the design and intended useof the digital work provider site 1602. For example, the other sitecomponents 1620 may include one or more pages of content, such aswebpages, webviews, or other online content, that may be presented tothe user 1408 through the provider interaction module 1612, such asduring shopping for digital works from the digital work provider site1602.

The digital work provider site 1602 may include or may access one ormore data stores 1622 that include a digital work library 1624, asupplemental information library 1626, and user information 1628. Forexample, the digital work library 1624 may include a plurality ofdigital works 1604 that the digital work provider has available foraccess by the user 1408, such as by purchase through the digital workscatalog 1616. The supplemental information library 1626 may includesupplemental information 1606 for at least some of the digital works1604 in the digital work library 1624. For example, the digital workprovider site may generate the supplemental information 1606 for thedigital works 1604 in the digital work library 1624 to provide theinterfaces and information described above with reference to FIGS. 3-13.Further, the user information 1628 may include information for aplurality of users 1408 of the digital work provider site 1602. Forexample, the user information 1628 may include account information foreach user for identifying and interacting with the user, such as name,email address, mailing address, telephone number, user identification(ID) number, user purchase history (e.g., digital works acquired by theuser) so forth.

The digital work provider site 1602 may also include a digital workpreparation module 1630 that may receive raw digital works 1632 from oneor more sources of digital works 1634. For example, the sources ofdigital works 1634 may be publishers, authors, movie distributers,studios, music companies, artists, and so forth. In the case of textualdigital works, the digital work preparation module 1630 may receive araw digital work 1632 from the publisher, author, or other source ofdigital works 1634, and may parse and process the raw digital work 1632to make the digital work compatible with various display formats, deviceplatforms, and so forth. For example, the digital work preparationmodule 1630 may identify the start location and end location of pages,paragraphs, sentences, and other information in the digital work, andmay produce metadata for the digital work that identifies the digitalwork and the properties of the digital work to enable rendering of thedigital work on an electronic device 100.

The digital work provider site 1602 may further include a supplementalinformation generation module 1636, which may operate on the digitalworks 1604 in the digital works library 1624 to produce the supplementalinformation 1606. For example, the supplemental information generationmodule 1636 may select a particular digital work 1604 from the digitalwork library 1624 for generating supplemental information 1606 for theparticular digital work 1604. The supplemental information generationmodule 1636 may parse and index the digital work by identifyingcharacters, people, things, phrases, places and so forth that are ofsignificance in the digital work. In some examples, the supplementalinformation generation module 1636 may access various authoritativesources of information, as well as performing statistical analysis andmodeling to identify the significant objects in the particular digitalwork 1604. Thus, during the parsing, the supplemental informationgeneration module 1636 may identify candidate objects that arecandidates to make into objects for the digital work, such as byidentifying proper names, place names, statistically improbable phrases,and the like, in the text of the digital work. For instance, astatistically improbable phrase is a word or combination of words thatoccur in the text of a digital work one or more times in a manner thatis out of a predetermined threshold. For example, if a particular phraseis used multiple times in a digital work, while not being used or beingused rarely in other digital works, this may be a statisticallyimprobable phrase that is a candidate to become an object of the digitalwork.

To determine which candidate objects to make into objects, thesupplemental information generation module 1636 may access other sourcesof information outside the digital work. For example, the supplementalinformation generation module 1636 may access network accessibleresources 1638 that may include online sources of information, such asWikipedia®, Shelfari® and IMDb®, online dictionaries, or other onlineresources, to determine identification of characters and othersignificant phrases, things, events or places in a digital work 1604.Further, the supplemental information generation module 1636 may obtainadditional information on the statistically improbable phrases in theparticular digital work 1604, such as by obtaining definitions or otherinformation for these phrases from various locations, such as theauthoritative sources mentioned above.

Following identification of the objects in the digital work, thesupplemental information generation module 1636 may identify or obtain,where available, excerpts with respect to identified objects in theparticular digital work from the authoritative sources. For example, thesupplemental information generation module 1636 may obtain content on anobject, such as an excerpt from a Wikipedia® article, a Shelfari® orIMDb® listing, or the like, to include with the supplemental information1606 as prestored content for the objects identified in the particulardigital work 1604. In other examples, the supplemental informationgeneration module 1636 identifies the location of the content containinginformation about the object and includes a reference identifier to anetwork location of the content, rather than the content itself, withthe with supplemental information.

The supplemental information 1606 generated for each digital work may bestored in the supplemental information library 1626. When the user 1408acquires a particular digital work 1604, such as through interactionwith the digital work store module 1614, the delivery module 1618 maydeliver the particular digital work 1604 to the electronic device 100,and may also deliver the corresponding supplemental information 1606 forthe particular digital work. For example, the particular digital work1604 and the corresponding supplemental information 1606 may bedownloaded contemporaneously from the digital work provider site 1602,e.g., as a package or as a sequential download.

Further, as mentioned above with respect to FIG. 14, updatedsupplemental information may also be provided for delivery to theelectronic device 100 for the digital works stored on the electronicdevice 100, such as during one-time updates or at regular intervalupdates. The digital work provider site 1602 may include a supplementalinformation updating module 1640 that checks for updates to thesupplemental information 1606. For example, the supplemental informationupdating module 1640 may check for updates to the digital work library1624 that may necessitate updating a supplemental information index,such as to expand a library view of particular objects to include newlyadded digital works. Further, the supplemental information updatingmodule 1640 may check for changes to prestored content in thesupplemental information 1606 and/or may determine that links or networklocations for new sources of information about objects in thesupplemental information are available. For example, the supplementalinformation updating module 1640 may update the supplemental information1606 for a digital work to include updated prestored content, newprestored content, or new or different reference identifiers to onlinesources of information about an object. Further, as mentioned above withreference to FIG. 14, the supplemental information updating module 1640may apply one or more policies, thresholds, or the like, to determinewhether the changes to the prestored content, reference identifiers, orother supplemental information are significant enough to warrant thedistribution of updated content.

When supplemental information 1606 for a particular digital work 1604 isupdated an amount significant enough to merit distribution of updatedsupplemental information, the supplemental information updating module1640 may use user information 1628 to determine one or more electronicdevices 100 that have an older version of the supplemental information.The supplemental information updating module 1640 may make updatedsupplemental information 1642 available for delivery to the one or moreelectronic devices 100 to update the supplemental information on thoseelectronic devices 100. The delivery module 1618 may deliver the updatedsupplemental information 1642, or may provide the updated supplementalinformation 1642 to an intermediary that performs the delivery.

Example Electronic Device

FIG. 17 illustrates select example components of the electronic device100 that may be used to implement the functionality described aboveaccording to some implementations. In a very basic configuration, theelectronic device 100 includes, or accesses, components such as at leastone processor 1702 and a computer-readable media 1704. Each processor1702 may itself comprise one or more processors or cores. Depending onthe configuration of the electronic device 100, the computer-readablemedia 1704 may be an example of non-transitory computer storage mediaand may include volatile and nonvolatile memory and/or removable andnon-removable media implemented in any type of technology for storage ofinformation such as computer-readable instructions, data structures,program modules or other data. Such computer-readable media includes,but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or othercomputer-readable media technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disks(DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, solidstate storage, magnetic disk storage, RAID storage systems, storagearrays, network attached storage, storage area networks, cloud storage,or any other medium that can be used to store information and which canbe accessed by the processor 1702 directly or through another computingdevice. Accordingly, the computer-readable media 1704 may becomputer-readable media able to maintain instructions, modules orcomponents executable by the processor 1702.

The computer-readable media 1704 may be used to store any number offunctional components that are executable by the processor 1702. In someimplementations, these functional components comprise instructions orprograms that are executable by the processor 1702 and that, whenexecuted, implement operational logic for performing the actionsattributed above to the electronic device 100. Functional components ofthe electronic device 100 stored in the computer-readable media 1704 mayinclude the digital work display module 1402 and the supplementalinformation display module 1404, as described above, which may beexecuted on the processor 1702 for displaying the digital works1420-1424 and supplemental information 1428-1432 for the digital works1420-1424, respectively. Additional functional components stored in thecomputer-readable media 1704 may include the provider interaction module1612, executable by the processor 1702 for obtaining the digital works1420-1424 and the corresponding supplemental information 1428-1432 fromthe digital work provider site 1602. Other functional components mayinclude an operating system and user interface module 1706 forcontrolling and managing various functions of the electronic device 100.Depending on the type of the electronic device 100, thecomputer-readable media 1704 may also optionally include otherfunctional components, such as other modules 1708, which may includeapplications, programs, drivers and so forth.

The computer-readable media 1704 may also store data, data structures,and the like that are used by the functional components. For example,data stored by the computer-readable media 1704 may include the digitalwork library 1418, containing the digital works 1420-1424, and thesupplemental information library 1426, containing the supplementalinformation 1428-1432. The electronic device 100 may also include otherdata 1710, which may include, for example, data used by the providerinteraction module 1612, the operating system and user interface 1706,and the other modules 1708. Further, the electronic device 100 mayinclude many other logical, programmatic and physical components, ofwhich those described are merely examples that are related to thediscussion herein.

FIG. 17 further illustrates the display 102, which may be passive,emissive or any other form of display. In one implementation, thedisplay uses electronic paper (ePaper) display technology, which isbi-stable, meaning that it is capable of holding text or other renderedimages even when very little or no power is supplied to the display.Some examples of suitable ePaper displays that may be used with theimplementations described herein include bi-stable LCDs, MEMS,cholesteric, pigmented electrophoretic, and others. In otherimplementations, or for other types of devices, the display 102 may bean active display such as a liquid crystal display, plasma display,light emitting diode display, organic light emitting diode display, andso forth. These displays may comprise drive electronics, such as adisplay drive matrix configured to affect individual pixels within thedisplay 102. Additionally, in some implementations, the display 102 maybe a 3D display capable of providing a 3D image. For example, thedisplay 102 may produce a 3D image by providing alternating left-eye andright-eye images with or without the use of shuttering or filteringeyeglasses. Accordingly, in some implementations, the visualrepresentations and other user interface components herein may berendered in 3D.

In some implementations, multiple displays 102 may be present on theelectronic device 100. When multiple displays are present, thesedisplays may be of the same or different types. For convenience only,the display 102 is shown in a generally rectangular configuration.However, it is understood that the display 102 may be implemented in anyshape, and may have any ratio of height to width. Also, for stylistic ordesign purposes, the display 102 may be curved or otherwise non-linearlyshaped. Furthermore, the display 102 may be flexible and configured tofold or roll.

One or more communication interfaces 1712 may support both wired andwireless connection to various networks, such as cellular networks,radio, WiFi networks, short-range or near-field networks (e.g.,Bluetooth®), infrared signals, local area networks, wide area networks,the Internet, and so forth. For example, the communication interface1712 may allow a user of the electronic device 100 to access the WorldWide Web, download digital works and supplemental information from thedigital work provider site 1602, access supplemental online content,such as a from a website or other network location, and the like. Thecommunication interface 1712 may further allow a user to access storageon another device, such as a user's computing device, a network attachedstorage device, or the like.

The electronic device 100 may further be equipped with various otherinput/output (I/O) components 1714. Such I/O components may include atouchscreen and various user actuatable controls (e.g., buttons, ajoystick, a keyboard, a mouse, etc.), speakers, a microphone, a camera,connection ports, and so forth. For example, the operating system 1706of the electronic device 100 may include suitable drivers configured toaccept input from a keypad, keyboard, or other user actuatable controlsand devices included as the I/O components 1714. For instance, the useractuatable controls may include page turning buttons, navigational keys,a power on/off button, selection keys, and so on. Additionally, theelectronic device 100 may include various other components that are notshown, examples of which include removable storage, a power source, suchas a battery and power control unit, a global positioning system (GPS)device, a PC Card component, and so forth.

Example Computing Devices

FIG. 18 illustrates select components of one or more host computingdevices 1610 that may be used to implement the functionality of thedigital work provider site 1602 according to some implementations. Thedigital work provider site 1602 may be hosted on one or more servers orother types of computing devices that may be embodied in any number ofways. For instance, in the case of a server, the digital work providersite 1602 may be implemented on a single server, a cluster of servers, aserver farm or data center, a cloud hosted computing service, and soforth, although other computer architectures (e.g., a mainframearchitecture) may also be used. Further, while the figures illustratethe components of the digital work provider site 1602 as being presentin a single location, it is to be appreciated that these components maybe distributed across different computing devices and locations in anymanner. Generally, the digital work provider site 1602 may beimplemented by one or more computing devices, with the variousfunctionality described above distributed in various ways across thedifferent computing devices. The computing devices may be locatedtogether or separately, and organized, for example, as virtual servers,server banks and/or server farms. The described functionality may beprovided by the servers of a single entity or enterprise, or may beprovided by the servers and/or services of multiple entities orenterprises.

As illustrated in FIG. 18, an example host computing device 1610includes one or more processors 1802, a computer-readable media 1804,and one or more communication interfaces 1806. The processor(s) 1802 maybe a single processing unit or a number of processing units, and mayinclude single or multiple computing units or multiple cores. Theprocessor(s) 1802 can be configured to fetch and executecomputer-readable instructions stored in the computer-readable media1804 or other computer-readable media.

The computer-readable media 1804 may include volatile and nonvolatilememory and/or removable and non-removable media implemented in any typeof technology for storage of information, such as computer-readableinstructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Suchcomputer-readable media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM,EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digitalversatile disks (DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes,magnetic tape, solid state storage, magnetic disk storage, RAID storagesystems, storage arrays, network attached storage, storage areanetworks, cloud storage, or any other medium that can be used to storethe desired information and that can be accessed by a computing device.Depending on the configuration of the computing device 1610, thecomputer-readable media 1804 may be a type of computer-readable storagemedia and may be a non-transitory storage media.

The computer-readable media 1804 may be used to store any number offunctional components that are executable by the processors 1802. Inmany implementations, these functional components comprise instructionsor programs that are executable by the processors 1802 and that, whenexecuted, implement operational logic for performing the actionsattributed above to the digital work provider site 1602. Functionalcomponents of the digital work provider site 1602 that may be executedon the processors 1802 for implementing the various functions andfeatures related to providing digital works and supplementalinformation, as described herein, include the digital work store module1614, the delivery module 1618, the digital work preparation module1630, the supplemental information generation module 1636, and thesupplemental information updating module 1640. Additional functionalcomponents stored in the computer-readable media 1804 may include theother site components 1620, and an operating system 1808 for controllingand managing various functions of the host computing device(s) 1610. Inaddition, the computer-readable media 1804 may include, or the hostcomputing device(s) 1610 may access, the data store(s) 1622, which mayinclude the digital work library 1624, including the digital works 1604,the supplemental information library 1626, including the supplementalinformation 1606, and the user information 1628. In addition, thecomputer-readable media 1804 may store or the host computing devices(s)1610 may access the digital work catalog 1616 used by the digital workstore module 1614. The host computing device(s) 1610 may also includemany other logical, programmatic and physical components, of which thosedescribed above are merely examples that are related to the discussionherein.

The communication interface(s) 1806 may include one or more interfacesand hardware components for enabling communication with various otherdevices, such as the electronic devices 100, over the network(s) 1608.For example, communication interface(s) 1806 may facilitatecommunication through one or more of the Internet, cable networks,cellular networks, wireless networks (e.g., Wi-Fi, cellular) and wirednetworks. Various different approaches to implementations describedherein can be implemented in various environments. For instance, thenetwork(s) 1608 may include any appropriate network, including anintranet, the Internet, a cellular network, a LAN, WAN, VPN or any othernetwork or combination thereof. Components used for such a system candepend at least in part upon the type of network and/or environmentselected. Protocols and components for communicating via such networksare well known and will not be discussed herein in detail.

Host computing device(s) 1610 may further be equipped with variousinput/output devices 1810. Such I/O devices 1810 may include a display,various user interface controls (e.g., buttons, mouse, keyboard, touchscreen, etc.), audio speakers, connection ports and so forth.

Various instructions, methods and techniques described herein may beconsidered in the general context of computer-executable instructions,such as program modules stored on computer storage media and executed bythe processors herein. Generally, program modules include routines,programs, objects, components, data structures, etc., for performingparticular tasks or implementing particular abstract data types. Theseprogram modules, and the like, may be executed as native code or may bedownloaded and executed, such as in a virtual machine or otherjust-in-time compilation execution environment. Typically, thefunctionality of the program modules may be combined or distributed asdesired in various implementations. An implementation of these modulesand techniques may be stored on computer storage media or transmittedacross some form of communication media.

Example Processes

FIGS. 19-21 illustrate example processes for providing supplementalinformation in connection with a digital work, as described above. Theseprocesses are illustrated as a collection of blocks in logical flowdiagrams, which represent a sequence of operations, some or all of whichcan be implemented in hardware, software or a combination thereof. Inthe context of software, the blocks represent computer-executableinstructions stored on one or more computer-readable media that, whenexecuted by one or more processors, perform the recited operations.Generally, computer-executable instructions include routines, programs,objects, components, data structures and the like that performparticular functions or implement particular abstract data types. Theorder in which the operations are described should not be construed as alimitation. Any number of the described blocks can be combined in anyorder and/or in parallel to implement the process, or alternativeprocesses, and not all of the blocks need be executed. For discussionpurposes, the processes are described with reference to thearchitectures and environments described in the examples herein,although the processes may be implemented in a wide variety of otherarchitectures or environments.

FIG. 19 is a flow diagram illustrating an example process 1900 that maybe executed by the electronic device 100 for providing supplementalinformation according to some implementations herein.

At block 1902, the electronic device receives supplemental informationcorresponding to a digital work as a result of accessing or receivingthe digital work. For example, when a user accesses and receives aparticular digital work, such as by purchasing, licensing, or so forth,the supplemental information for the particular digital work may beprovided to the electronic device along with the particular digitalwork, such as before, during, or after delivery of the particulardigital work.

At block 1904, the electronic device displays the digital work on adisplay. For example, the user may use the electronic device to consumethe digital work, such as by reading the digital work, playing thedigital work, viewing the digital work, or the like.

At block 1906, the electronic device receives a selection of an objectcontained in the digital work. For example, a user may select an objectdisplayed on the display of the digital work, such as by using a touchinput, or other user input or input control to select the object.

At block 1908, the electronic device renders supplemental informationrelated to at least the selected object on the display. For example, theelectronic device may display supplemental information corresponding tothe selected object. Furthermore, the electronic device may displaysupplemental information corresponding to other objects contained in thedigital work, such as other objects contained on the same page as theselected object, same chapter as the selected object, or in the entiredigital work.

FIG. 20 is a flow diagram illustrating an example process 2000 that maybe executed by a digital work provider computing device, such as one ormore of host computing devices 1610, for providing supplementalinformation according to some implementations.

At block 2002, the computing device analyzes a digital work to identifyobjects in the digital work. For example, the computing device may usestatistical analysis techniques to identify proper names, place names,statistically improbably phrases, and so forth, in the digital work ascandidate objects for being designated as objects. Additionally, in someexamples, the computing device may refer to one or more externalsources, such as network accessible resources, for assistance inidentifying objects that may be of interest to a consumer of the digitalwork.

At block 2004, the computing device identifies alternate names for theobjects identified in the digital work. For example, the computingdevice may determine nicknames, singular and plural variations, and soforth, for the objects to identify additional occurrences of the objectsin the digital work. In some instances, the computing device may referto external sources, such as network accessible resources, forassistance in identifying alternate names for the objects.

At block 2006, the computing device generates an index for theidentified objects and includes in the index locations of the objects inthe digital work. For example, the computing device may generate anindex that includes a name of an object, a type of the object, andlocations of one or more occurrences of the object in the digital work.

At block 2008, the computing device may obtain external content for oneor more of the objects identified in the digital work. For example, thecomputing device may refer to one or more authoritative sources, such asby accessing one or more sources external to the digital work and/ornetwork accessible resources available through a network such as theInternet. Examples of suitable network accessible resources may includeWikipedia®, Shelfari®, IMDb®, online dictionaries, encyclopedias, andthe like.

At block 2010, the computing device prepares supplemental informationfor the digital work based on the index (including alternate names) andthe external content. For example, the computing device may prepare aninstance of supplemental information corresponding to the particulardigital work. The instance of supplemental information may include theindex generated for the digital work and the external content obtainedfor the objects identified in the digital work.

At block 2012, the computing device includes the supplementalinformation when providing the digital work to an electronic device. Forexample, a delivery module executing on the computing device may deliverthe supplemental information to an electronic device that receives thedigital work. Accordingly, the supplemental information may be providedto the electronic device contemporaneously with the digital work, suchas before, during or after delivery of the digital work.

FIG. 21 is a flow diagram illustrating an example process 2100 that maybe executed by the electronic device 100 for providing supplementalinformation that includes a visual representation according to someimplementations.

At block 2102, the electronic device receives a selection of an objectin a digital work. For example, a user may select an object from adisplayed text of the digital work.

At block 2104, the electronic device identifies at least one occurrenceof the object in the digital work. For example, the electronic devicemay refer to an index that includes a listing for the object todetermine one or more locations of occurrences of the object in thedigital work.

At block 2106, the electronic device determines a total expanse of thedigital work. For example, the electronic device may determine a totalnumber of pages in the digital work, a total number of assignedlocations assigned to parts of the digital work, a total runtime of thedigital work, or the like.

At block 2108, the electronic device presents a visual representationcorresponding to the selected object, including at least one position ofat least one occurrence of the selected object in proportion to thetotal expanse of the digital work. For example, the visualrepresentation may include one or more markings that indicate locationsand frequency of one or more occurrences of the object in proportion toa total size of the digital work, such as a total number of pages, totallength, total playing time, or so forth. Accordingly, the visualrepresentation may include any one of the example configurations ofvisual representations 418, 1102, 1104, 1106 and 1108 described abovewith respect to FIG. 11, and/or other possible variations of visualrepresentations that represent a location of at least one occurrence ofan object in relation to a total expanse of the digital work.

The example processes described herein are only examples of processesprovided for discussion purposes. Numerous other variations will beapparent to those of skill in the art in light of the disclosure herein.Further, while the disclosure herein sets forth several examples ofsuitable frameworks, architectures and environments for executing theprocesses, implementations herein are not limited to the particularexamples shown and discussed.

Furthermore, this disclosure provides various example implementations,as described and as illustrated in the drawings. However, thisdisclosure is not limited to the implementations described andillustrated herein, but can extend to other implementations, as would beknown or as would become known to those skilled in the art. Reference inthe specification to “one implementation,” “this implementation,” “theseimplementations” or “some implementations” means that a particularfeature, structure, or characteristic described is included in at leastone implementation, and the appearances of these phrases in variousplaces in the specification are not necessarily all referring to thesame implementation.

CONCLUSION

Although the subject matter has been described in language specific tostructural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understoodthat the subject matter defined in the appended claims is notnecessarily limited to the specific features or acts described. Rather,the specific features and acts are disclosed as example forms ofimplementing the claims.

The invention claimed is:
 1. One or more non-transitorycomputer-readable media maintaining instructions executable by aprocessor of an electronic device to perform operations comprising:presenting text content of a page of a digital work on a display of theelectronic device, the digital work including multiple pages of textcontent; receiving, by the electronic device, a selection of an objectof text, wherein the selected object is representative of at least oneof a character, a place, a thing, a phrase of interest, or an eventincluded in the text content of the page of the digital work;presenting, on the display, a page view user interface that includes: alisting of objects of text, the listing including the selected objectand one or more other objects included in the text content of the pagewith the selected object; and for at least one object in the listing ofobjects, a respective visual representation corresponding to the atleast one object in the listing, the visual representation comprising atleast one graphical marking indicating at least one location and afrequency of which an instance of the at least one object occurs in thedigital work, the at least one graphical marking displayed in an arearepresentative of a total length of the digital work.
 2. The one or morenon-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, theoperations further comprising: receiving a user input for navigating toa supplemental information view user interface; and presenting thesupplemental information view user interface on the display, wherein thesupplemental information view user interface includes at least one of:at least one excerpt of text from the digital work, the at least oneexcerpt of text including an occurrence of the selected object; orcontent that includes information about the selected object, the contentobtained from a source external to the digital work.
 3. The one or morenon-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, theoperations further comprising: receiving a user input for navigating toanother page of the digital work in the page view user interface; andpresenting in the listing of objects in the page view user interface oneor more objects that are included in the other page of the digital work.4. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited inclaim 1, the operations further comprising: receiving a user input fornavigating to a chapter view user interface; and presenting the chapterview user interface on the display, wherein the chapter view userinterface includes a listing of objects that are included in the chapterwithin which the object was selected.
 5. The one or more non-transitorycomputer-readable media as recited in claim 1, the operations furthercomprising: receiving a user input for navigating to a book view userinterface; and presenting the book view user interface on the display,wherein the book view user interface includes a listing of objects thatare included in the digital work within which the object was selected.6. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited inclaim 1, the operations further comprising: prior to presenting the pageview user interface, displaying a control on the display in response tothe selection of the object; and receiving a user selection of thecontrol to cause the presenting of the page view user interface.
 7. Theone or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim1, wherein the at least one graphical marking comprises at least one ofa line, a bar, a circle, or a color.
 8. A method comprising: undercontrol of one or more processors of a device specifically configuredwith executable instructions: presenting text content of a digital workon a display of the device, the digital work including multiple pages oftext content; receiving, by the device, a selection of an object oftext, wherein the selected object is representative of at least one of acharacter, a place, a thing, a phrase of interest, or an event includedin the text content of the digital work; presenting, on the display, auser interface that includes a listing of objects of text from thedigital work, the listing including the selected object, wherein atleast one of the objects in the listing of objects occurs at multiplelocations in the digital work; and presenting in the user interface arespective visual representation corresponding to each object listed inthe listing of objects, the visual representation for each object listedproviding at least one graphical marking indicating at least onelocation and a frequency of which an instance of the object listedoccurs in the digital work.
 9. The method as recited in claim 8, whereinthe listing of objects includes multiple different objects from a singlepage of the digital work, the method further comprising: presenting aline traversing the visual representations, the line representing alocation of the single page with respect to the visual representations;receiving a selection of a control to navigate to display of a listingof objects for a different page of the digital work; and changing alocation of the line with respect to the visual representations toreflect the location of the different page with respect to the visualrepresentations.
 10. The method as recited in claim 8, furthercomprising presenting a control for navigating between a page view, inwhich the listing of objects includes objects from a single page of thedigital work, and a book view, in which the listing of objects includesobjects from an entirety of the digital work.
 11. The method as recitedin claim 8, further comprising presenting a control for navigatingbetween a page view, in which the listing of objects includes objectsfrom a single page of the digital work, and a chapter view, in which thelisting of objects includes objects from a single chapter of the digitalwork.
 12. The method as recited in claim 8, further comprisingpresenting a control for navigating between a chapter view, in which thelisting of objects includes objects from a single chapter of the digitalwork, and a book view, in which the listing of objects includes objectsfrom an entirety of the digital work.
 13. The method as recited in claim8, further comprising presenting a control for navigating to a seriesview in which the listing of objects includes objects from a series ofdigital works including the digital work.
 14. The method as recited inclaim 8, further comprising presenting a control for navigating to alibrary view in which a listing of titles of a plurality of digitalworks are displayed, each digital work of the plurality of digital workslisted in the listing including at least one occurrence of the selectedobject.
 15. The method as recited in claim 14, wherein the library viewfurther includes a respective visual representation corresponding toeach listed digital work, the respective visual representationcorresponding to each digital work indicating a location of the at leastone occurrence of the selected object in the listed digital work. 16.The method as recited in claim 8, further comprising: receiving aselection of one of the objects displayed in the listing of objects; anddisplaying a supplemental information view, the supplemental informationview providing at least one excerpt of text taken from the digital work,the at least one excerpt of text including an occurrence of the objectselected from the listing.
 17. The method as recited in claim 16,wherein displaying the supplemental information view further comprisesdisplaying, with the at least one excerpt of text taken from the digitalwork, content related to the object selected from the listing, whereinthe content is obtained from a source external to the digital work. 18.The method as recited in claim 17, wherein the content from the sourceexternal to the digital work includes at least one of: text describingthe object selected from the listing; an image related to the objectselected from the listing; a video clip related to the object selectedfrom the listing; or an audio clip related to the object selected fromthe listing.
 19. A device comprising: a display; one or more processors;one or more computer-readable media; and a module maintained on the oneor more computer-readable media and executed on the one or moreprocessors to perform operations that include: receiving a selection ofan object of text from among a plurality of objects of text identifiedin a digital work, wherein the selected object is identified asrepresentative of at least one of a character, a place, a thing, aphrase of interest, or an event included in the digital work; andpresenting a user interface that includes: excerpts of text taken fromthe digital work, each excerpt of text including an occurrence of theselected object, wherein at least one of the excerpts is presented basedon an alternate name for the selected object; and a visualrepresentation for the selected object providing an indication of atleast one position and a frequency of which an instance of the selectedobject occurs in the digital work, the visual representation including afirst graphical marking corresponding to a first position associatedwith an occurrence of an instance of the selected object and a secondgraphical marking corresponding to a second position associated with anoccurrence of another instance of the selected object, the firstgraphical marking and the second graphical marking being displayed inproportion to a total length of the digital work.
 20. The device asrecited in claim 19, wherein the user interface further comprises: aslider presented with the visual representation to indicate a currentlocation of the excerpts of text taken from the digital work, such thata size of the slider presented varies with respect to the visualrepresentation depending on a distance between the excerpts of textcurrently displayed in comparison with the total length of the digitalwork.
 21. The device as recited in claim 20, wherein movement of theslider with respect to the visual representation results in display ofone or more different excerpts of text taken from the digital workcorresponding to an area of coverage of the slider with respect to thegraphical markings in the visual representation.
 22. The device asrecited in claim 19, further comprising presenting content related tothe selected object in the user interface, wherein the content isobtained from a source external to the digital work.
 23. The device asrecited in claim 22, wherein the content from the source external to thedigital work includes at least one of: text describing the selectedobject; an image related to the selected object; a video clip related tothe selected object; or an audio clip related to the selected object.24. The device as recited in claim 19, wherein: the user interface isdisplayed in a window presented over a display of the digital work; andclosing the window results in display of the digital work.
 25. One ormore non-transitory computer-readable media maintaining instructionsexecutable by a processor of an electronic device to perform operationscomprising: receiving a selection of an object of text from a digitalwork, wherein instances of the selected object occur at multiplelocations in the digital work, wherein the selected object isrepresentative of at least one of a character, a place, a thing, aphrase of interest, or an event included in the digital work; presentinga first view in a user interface that includes: a listing of objects oftext that includes at least the selected object; and a visualrepresentation displayed with the selected object in the listing, thevisual representation providing a representation of graphical markingsindicating locations of at least one occurrence and a frequency of whichthe instances of the selected object occur in the digital work inproportion to a total length of the digital work; receiving a user inputto navigate to a second view in the user interface; and presenting thesecond view in the user interface such that the listing includes atleast one other object from the digital work not previously included inthe listing and at least one other visual representation correspondingto the at least one other object in the listing.
 26. The one or morenon-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 25, wherein:the first view is a first page view corresponding to a particular pageof the digital work, and the user input is for navigating to a secondpage view in the user interface as the second view, corresponding to adifferent page of the digital work; the listing in the first view of theuser interface includes one or more objects, including the selectedobject, that are included on the particular page of the digital work;and the listing in the second view of the user interface includes one ormore objects that are included on the different page of the digitalwork.
 27. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media asrecited in claim 25, wherein: the first view is a page viewcorresponding to a page of the digital work, and the user input is fornavigating to a chapter view in the user interface as the second view,corresponding to a chapter of the digital work; the listing in the firstview of the user interface includes one or more objects, including theselected object, that are included on the page of the digital work,wherein the first view further includes a set of object buttonsindicating types of objects present in the first view; and the listingin the second view of the user interface includes one or more objectsthat are included in the chapter within which the object was selected,wherein the second view further includes a different set of objectbuttons indicating types of objects present in the second view.
 28. Theone or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim25, wherein: the first view is a page view corresponding to a page ofthe digital work, and the user input is for navigating to a book view inthe user interface as the second view, corresponding to an entirety ofthe digital work; the listing in the first view of the user interfaceincludes one or more objects, including the selected object, that areincluded on the page of the digital work; and the listing in the secondview of the user interface includes the objects that are included in theentirety of the digital work.
 29. The one or more non-transitorycomputer-readable media as recited in claim 25, wherein: the first viewis a book view corresponding to an entirety of the digital work, and theuser input is for navigating to a series view in the user interface asthe second view, corresponding to a series of digital works includingthe digital work; the listing in the first view of the user interfaceincludes the objects that are included in the entirety of the digitalwork; and the listing in the second view of the user interface includesthe objects that are included in the series of digital works.